Glasgow
by KateEals
Summary: Jules fights for her life in a coma while the team struggles to come to terms with the precipitating event that caused her demise. Post Slow Burn. Heavy JAM. Strong Ed storyline.
1. Prologue: Pipes in Toronto

**Author's Note: **Yes, I realize Metaphysical Marathon is not finished yet, but here is the start of the story I plan on focusing on after its conclusion. Inspiration was just knocking on my door tonight, and I just wanted to get this written down. This is just a teaser, pretty bare, doesn't really reflect my complete normal style, but that's the point of the teaser; it just gives you a taste for the story. Part of the inspiration came from our current #Flashpointpack mission to see if we can all beat someone with a lead pipe in one time period. Last time, we all killed Sam in one week, so we figured we'd shake things up with pipes. When we're not coming up with these fun assignments, we spend our time having random conversations and debates on Twitter such as the use and nature of marriage and 45 minute conversations (with video and picture evidence) on whether or not David and Amy Jo used tongues when they were making out in Personal Effects. Yes, we rock. Oh, and thanks to all who have been reading Metaphysical Marathon. Chapter 15 of that inspired me to make this a lot more of a JAMMY piece.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint or a lead pipe.

Glasgow

Prologue: Pipes of Toronto

"We have five people being held hostage in the restaurant, one at gun point as a human shield. I'll be doing the negotiation. Spike, see what information you can get me on the subject. Ed, Sam, Raf, devise a tactical plan in case we can manage entry. Jules, Sierra One. Find a perch and get eyes on this guy."

The united members of Toronto's elite Strategic Response Unit Team One nodded in agreement to their assigned tasks from their boss, Sargent Greg Parker. Officers Ed Lane and Sam Braddock, as co-tactical leaders of the team, converged to design a plan of entry with the assistance of the team rookie, Officer Raf Rousseau. Officer Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti jumped inside the team's mobile command truck to begin his quest to gather information and access views inside the restaurant by establishing a link to pre-existing surveillance cameras; or rather, camera. This was a relatively low budget Ma and Pa style establishment with no reason for having more than one crime deterring surveillance device. The single camera's mere presence usually scared off any potential thieves. Greg himself gathered what little intelligence he had so far and prepared to make the initial negotiation call.

Officer Julianna "Jules" Callaghan, long-time sniper, repelling and tactical expert, and Second Negotiator of the team retrieved her sniper rifle from the trunk of her SUV. She hadn't had many opportunities to use the weapon in the past four years, not since Sam Braddock, former hot-shot JTF2 sniper and surprising the love of her life joined the team. He usually took the long distance shots that she and Ed used to mostly take. She didn't mind this role shuffle, knowing that she had a strong talent for negotiating and profiling; many members of the entire SRU believed she was being groomed to take-over for Greg as Sargent of Team One when he retired. She didn't pay much heed to these speculations, but did admit that she was a damn good negotiator and well-rounded officer, probably better qualified for the job of Sargent than anyone else on Team One. Although she relished the mental challenge of thinking and talking her way to peaceful resolutions, she had to admit that she was a bit excited to be stepping into her former main role on the team. She may be one of the best negotiators the SRU had ever seen, but she was also one of the best snipers it had ever known.

She grabbed her binoculars, the only piece of equipment as important to a sniper as his rifle, and scoped out the surrounding area, searching for a good perch. There were three five to seven story buildings adjacent to the establishment in which the hostage crisis was taking place. "Looks like the South building, five stories, 20 degree angle on the subject, is my best bet. Ed, Sam, you agree?" she asked the opinions of her riflemen team mates through her com link. For, that's what they were. Team-mates. They valued and respected each other's opinions, worked as a single unit to solve problems, relied on each other's actions to keep the whole team and the public safe.

"Copy, Jules. Sounds good. Should give us enough room to maneuver and stay clear of your line of fire," Sam responded from across the street where the tactical conference was taking place. He gave his binoculars to Ed to confirm this assessment. Ed agreed with a nod of his bald head and continued to map-out the potential tactical plan of entry.

"Spike, I'm making the first call. What have you got for me?" Greg asked from beside Spike in the command truck. He wanted all the information he could receive before initiating the negotiation and attempting a peaceful resolution of the problematic situation.

Spike sighed from his seated position. "Not much, Boss. From the pictures we've got, the subject is Preston Larson. Rap sheet for a couple of robbery attempts, but no known gang affiliation. Best I can tell, this is just a robbery gone wrong."

Greg nodded in acknowledgement. "Right. Just try to convince him to end this peacefully for a reduced sentence. No reason we all can't go home from this," Greg verbalized his planed strategy. "Does he have any known accomplices on this attempted heist?"

Spike shook his head in ignorance. "Don't see any on the surveillance, but he's been known to work well with others. The main thing is that hostage in his arms, Boss. Just gotta convince him there's no sense in using her as a human shield."

Greg nodded in agreement, his cell phone held to his chest waiting patiently to be pressed into service. "Sierra One, what's your status?"

Jules huffed at the top of the last of the five stories' flights of stairs. Being in near perfect physical shape, ready to sprint or run a marathon at the drop of a hat, she wasn't winded at all from the upward hump, she just wanted to announce her position gutturally before verbally. "Sierra One on the roof, 20 seconds away from being in position."

"Copy that, Sierra One. Initiating first contact with the subject," Greg reported as he dialed his phone.

Jules walked to the edge of the roof, detached the supports of her rifle, and settled into position. She cleared her mind of all thought and steadied her breathing in the course of lowering her heart rate. A good sniper shoots between heartbeats; slowing one's breathing gives a sniper more time to make the shot. "Sierra One, in position. I have the solution," she reported in a cold, steady, calm voice, a potential threat to many human lives in her cross-hairs.

"Thank you for talking to me, Preston. I just want everyone to go home safely from this situation today." Greg halted his negotiation and covered his phone's mouth piece with his gloved hand. "Copy, Sierra One. Wait for my Scorpio," he spoke calmly into his com link.

Jules remained silent, counting her heartbeats, focusing so much on them she could feel them reverberating throughout her body, counting them, just as she loved to count and feel Sam's beating heart against hers when she lay on the edge of sleep with him nearly every night now. Their relationship exposed and approved of, she never had to worry about giving-up this pre-slumber ritual ever again for fear of losing her job, her calling. She hoped she would get to feel his heart beating strongly against hers every night for the rest of her life; it's slow, steady rhythm lulling her to sleep. She counted her own heartbeats now, numbering them as if she were the stars in the night's sky as she stalked the subject with the scope of her rifle.

"Tactical plan of entry established, Boss. In position and ready for your go," Ed reported from his post outside the restaurant's back entrance. Sam was at the front entrance, while Raf stood behind Ed as back-up.

Greg reprised the one-man symphony of action he used with Jules to communicate with Ed. "Copy that, Ed. Stand by for action."

Just as he finished his order, the subject caught a glimpse of Sam off a reflective mixing bowl surface in the restaurant. He raised his gun from the downward position Greg had gotten him to assume and pointed it towards Sam. "What are you doing? What are you doing, Greg?" he shouted into the phone, gun poised to fire. "You gonna break in here, you go snipers on me?" He violently threw the phone on the floor in rage.

"Subject escalated to red. Sierra One, stand by," Greg ordered as he attempted to get Preston Larson back on the phone.

Irate at the perceived police slight, Larson raised his gun higher and fired it in Sam's direction.

"Scorpio, Scorpio!" Greg ordered.

But at the same moment as Larson fired, Jules on the roof top heard a nearly imperceptible shuffle of gravel behind her and used lightning reflexes to assess the situation only to see a hard lead pipe thrashing down towards her bare, unprotected head from the corner of her eye.

Her world went black a split second later.

The Scorpio shot never had a chance to ring-out through the summer day's sky.

**Additional Author's Note:** Yes, I promised the #Flashpointpack that I would beat Jules with a pipe, because apparently I enjoy torturing my favorite character. Also, if you can figure-out why this story is called "Glasgow," you deserve a cookie. Or one of **MollyLyn'**s "I'm'a get me some" cupcakes.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this story so far and if you think you know what Glasgow means.

Thanks for reading,

Eals


	2. Goodbye to That Castle in the Sky

**Author's Note: **I'd like to send a special thank you out to everyone who read, reviewed, and placed on favorites _Metaphysical Marathon_, the story I just finished, and the prologue to this story as well. I'm glad you guys seem to enjoy these stories. I really wanted to get to writing this particular piece soon, because I quite frankly want to know what happens too.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint or Marvel Comics.

Glasgow

Chapter 1: Goodbye to That Castle in the Sky

**Day 1**

Five Hours Earlier 7am

As Jules chopped-up chunks of mangos and bananas for her 'famous' mango-protein breakfast smoothies, she could hear Sam rummaging around upstairs, frantically trying to get himself organized for work. He had woken up later than usual and well, Jules smirked to herself, she had let him. If he had slept-in even one minute longer, she would have awaken him herself, probably with gentle butterfly kisses augmented by the clanging of abrasive metal pots, but she had her reasons for letting him indulge in a little extra sleep.

Aside from the fact that she always loved to see his cutely disappointed face (quickly masked so as not to 'offend' her) when he saw that she had once again made 'girl food' for breakfast, she also loved how unbelievably adorable he was when flustered. Just that slight sheen of fear that bordered his face at such times always made her smile. He was usually so unflappable, the Unsinkable Sammy Braddock, but those moments of youthful innocence, the fear of being late for an important date and subsequently being sent to some metaphorical principal's office, those moments always managed to melt her heart. But, of course she'd only seen them for that length of time: moments. Mere seconds in the space-time continuum, a ripple in the waves of time and space. Truth was, she'd never really want to see that flustered fear for more than that span of time or for legitimate reasons rather than the fear of some yet to be revealed inconsequential circumstance. She'd seen that consequentially derived face of dread once in her life and it had killed her more than the blood rapidly flowing out of her body or the anthrax slowly infecting her lungs. She just liked to take guilty pleasure in seeing him flustered for that instant it took her to switch-off her blender and give him her full attention.

Having finished making the smoothies, Jules transferred the contents of the blender into travel mugs so that she and Sam could enjoy them on the road to work. She smiled to herself in the simple contentment that her life with Sam, a life that had been christened acceptable by the Chief of the Metro Police Department, had afforded her. In this reality, she could just imagine Sam placing mental air-quotes around the word 'enjoy.' Him taking his poison and paying her for it with the currency of a gentle kiss on the forehead as she handed him the cup with its golden contents had continually been proof of his love for her; he'd take something that he wasn't particularly fond of in the least and accept it with gleeful exuberance, simply because it came from her hand. Her mutual love for him prevented her from repeating this entire sequence of events any more than a few times a month. Just a guilty pleasure, a rare indulgence.

"Morning, Jules," his voice rang-out slightly higher in pitch than normal from behind her. She smiled to herself, stayed turned, and closed her eyes, content to revel in the reverberations of flustered panic in his voice rather than having to see it on his face as visual evidence. The expression of his simple language enough to sooth her craving for a fix.

She waited just a second longer, a second in which Sam utilized by wrapping his arms around her torso, then turned to give him a greeting smile. Success. She'd given him time to rearrange his features. The only tangible evidence of his brief loss of cool now embedded in her hippocampus, amygdala, waiting a few lingering moments before being transferred to permanent storage in her sensory memory banks. The only evidence a secrete now stored in her; if she didn't exist, her mind didn't exist, neither would this moment in time. "Hey, Sam. Glad you could join me."

Sam frowned, then took a moment even in the time that should now be reserved for a morning rush and leaned forward to give her a lingering kiss straight on the soft peddles of her lips. He reluctantly pulled away. "Look, I know we're in a hurry—" At Jules' raised eyebrow and half frown he defended, "and I know that's pretty much my fault," he waited while Jules flicked her eyebrows at him in sardonic acknowledgement, "but we're leaving for our trip to the coast in just three days, and you haven't even packed one bag." He ended in a slight pout attempting to guilt her into acquiescence.

She rolled her eyes at him so as to express her lack of enthusiasm for a three day trip to Vancouver, which she would have rather spent at home finishing the renovations of her basement that she had just never had the opportunity to get around to.

Her lack of enthusiasm was alright for Sam right now. She didn't have to be as excited as him, because after all, she was still ignorant as to the whole purpose of the trip. She didn't know that when they reached the summit of their trail hike in Whistler that he intended to pointedly neglect the beauty of the surrounding wilderness just so that he could focus all of his attention on the beauty that was Jules. His Jules. He intended to stare deeply into her dark hazelnut eyes and ask her a question that would make it all official.

He knew she would think his methodology was the sappiest thing in the world and make the wittiest remark she could possibly think of, but still, he knew she'd say yes.

Three days. Just three days.

Jules pulled away from Sam to grab her keys off the kitchen counter. "Okay, Sam. I promise I'll finish all my laundry, start packing, iron your jeans and 70's era disco duck shiny shirt, negotiate peace in the Middle East, and prove the existence of Santa Claus to little Virginia when we get back home from work tonight." She gave him a sarcastically animated smile so as to seal the deal of these promises, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and grabbed his hand to lead him towards the door and off to their 12 hour shift at the SRU.

Although she didn't exactly share his enthusiasm for their up-coming mini vacation, she loved to see how excited he seemed to be about the whole endeavor. And it wasn't that she wasn't that excited for the change of scenery herself, it was just that it was completely superfluous to her: she didn't need to be any place special so much as she needed to be with Sam. His simple presence had the power to blind her from the natural world, entrap her in the soft alternate reality that was his embrace. It didn't matter where 'here' was so long as 'here' was spelled S-A-M.

Before opening the door and leaving the blissful confines of their shared reality within the tangible existence of Jules' renovated townhouse, Sam took a moment to breath into her hair. "I love you, Jules."

Jules sighed in contentment as she opened the door. She couldn't imagine existing in any other place besides his loving embrace. She chuckled. "Aw, you're just say'n that because you love my mango breakfast smoothies," she quipped at the same time as reaching for his hand and squeezing it, returning his unambiguous declaration with one of her own.

Five Hours Later 12pm

"Scorpio, Scorpio!" Greg called and waited for the shot to ring-out a split second later. It never came, but a masculine groan of pain was grunted out over one of the male team member's com links.

Another shot was fired by the subject in the space of time it took for Greg to wait for his Scorpio call to be executed. Team One had lost control.

"Sierra One! Do you copy?" No answer. "Ed, we've lost contact with Sierra One, initiate entry now!" Greg was losing his usual calm. Nothing was going as planned. "Jules?" Still no answer even though the channel of her com link still appeared to be functional. His aggravation at the dissolution of the planed exit strategy of the call and the possibility of equipment malfunctions were rapidly being replaced by concern for his sniper. "Jules, do you copy?" Still only dead air. "Spike, call her cell phone; her mic must be down."

Two rapid shots from an MP5 assault rifle filled the air and Greg's com link, effectively punctuating his command to Spike. Raf would have to have an interview with the SIU.

"Subject neutralized," Ed informed matter-of-factly. His tone suddenly changed. "Sam, you're hit."

Greg's face twitched in concern at this revelation. He hated that the situation had escalated to the point where they had had to end it by neutralizing the subject, but far worse was the definite knowledge that a member of his team had been injured.

"I'm fine, Ed. Just hit me in the arm," Sam assured over the link.

"Boss, what happened with the Sierra shot?" Ed demanded of Greg as he ushered Sam and the now former hostages out of the restaurant and towards EMS to be evaluated.

Greg looked at Spike who was still attempting to make contact with Jules via cell phone. "Working on that, Ed. Just get Sam to EMS and have uniforms corral the civilians for debriefing."

Spike looked-up at Greg and shook his head. "No answer, Boss." Worried concern lined Spike's face. His mind shot to images of dreadful possibilities.

Greg's face was a perfect mirrored reflection of Spike's worry. "Let's go check it out, Spike." He quickly picked-up an emergency responders' radio and issued separate orders. "We've got an unresponsive officer. I need EMS on stand-by in case we have a problem."

As Spike and Greg ran out of the truck and towards the five-story building Jules had picked as her perch, looking up to see no sniper rifle pointed over the edge, Sam spoke over the com link. "What's going on with Jules, Sarge?" He had attempted to keep his voice professionally neutral, but worry still trickled in.

"We're checking it out now, Sam," Greg reassured the younger officer as he and Spike ran up the stairs of the building. He had spoken to Sam with as much conviction as he possibly could, but still, his reassurance fell deaf on his own ears. No response on the com link or her cell phone was not a good sign. He summoned all of his mental energy to keep his mind from envisioning all of the frightening possibilities that could explain her radio silence.

Spike and Greg reached the last flight of stairs and sprinted up them as if they had wings attached to their bodies like Arch Angel of Marvel Comics lore. Greg restrained himself from kicking the door at the top of the stairs down and merely barreled through it, flinging the door aside, Spike right on his heels.

As they rounded the corner in the direction the sniper would have set-up her perch, Spike swore and Greg froze momentarily at the sight 20 meters in front of them. Lying on the roof, not moving, was the clad in black uniform form of his protégée and self-proclaimed 'heart.' He unlocked his senses and ran after Spike who had not had a moment of hesitation. "Jules!" He drew her name out, fear causing it to siren at the end. "Get EMS here now!" he shouted into the emergency radio he still carried.

Sitting on the edge of an ambulance on the street below having his gun-shot wounded arm patched-up, Sam heard Spike and Greg's frantic exclamations in his com link. "Jules?" He was confused at first, but he soon leaped to action, wrenching out of the hands of the paramedic attending him. "What the Hell is going on? Spike? Sarge?"

Ed blocked him before he could take two steps. "Whoa, easy, Sam. The paramedics aren't done with you yet." Ed gave him a commanding look that warmed Sam against making things personal on duty.

Sam stared straight back into Ed's eyes, fire and passion questioning what he would do if it was his Sophie. "The call's over, Ed," was his simple verbalized response. His eyes had said it all.

And Ed had received the message. He nodded his head signaling that he understood and would allow Sam the same courtesy that he'd want for himself if it was the woman he loved in question.

Up on the roof top, Spike and Greg had reached their fallen comrade. "Jules," Greg called in a calm, clear voice. Still no response. She was slumped-over her rifle, lying on the front side of her body. Greg thought how small she looked. . .

Spike had his hand on her neck, searching for a pulse. He smiled at Greg. "I've got a pulse, Sarge."

Greg nodded. He knew they had to turn her on her back to examine whatever injury had afflicted her, but Greg was hesitant to move her for fear of a possible spinal-cord injury. "Spike, we've got to turn her over. Flip her around while I hold her neck stable," Greg ordered, bracing her head and neck, cradling her in his hands. His face turned pale before Spike even moved her an inch. He could feel blood running down the right side of her head. "Easy, Spike," he ordered in what he hoped was some semblance of a calm voice.

As they turned her around, Greg got his first full view of the injury that had incapacitated her. He breathed in sharply. "Oh, Jules," he breathed out in a whisper, lightly stroking her uninjured cheek in a fatherly attempt at comfort, which he knew she wouldn't be able to feel in her current state. A trail of blood reveled a massive head wound lining the right side of her skull.

With a lightning quick sprint from the street to the roof, Sam arrived before the EMT's. He quickly approached where Spike and Greg kneeled next to Jules, blocking his view of her head. Sam nearly pushed Spike, who was attempting to check her pupil response with a flashlight, out of the way so that he could kneel in Spike's place. In so doing, he caught his first view of the massive wound on her head. He saw the rise in her chest that assured him she was still breathing, then looked from her oddly peaceful face up into Greg's, shock and fear lining his own features. "What—" he started to attempt to ask before turning back to her to lightly caress her face. "Jules. Jules! Jules, WAKE-UP DAMN-IT!" He had become hysterical in his fear. "Please, Jules, please wake-up for me," pleaded in a softer tone.

So engrossed in his attempts to awaken his soul mate, Sam had missed the arrival of the EMT's. One had replaced Greg's position in stabilizing her head and neck. Greg placed a hand on Sam's shoulder, trying to coax him out of his position to allow the second EMT to place a C-collar on her neck. Sam tried to shrug his hand off, but Greg's grip only grew tighter. "Let them work, Sam," he persuaded.

Sam shook his head, stunned realization ghosting his face. Greg pulled him farther back as the EMT's placed an oxygen mask over her face and loaded her onto a stretcher. "We're taking her to St. Patrick's," one of them informed as they continued to work.

Greg nodded and forced Sam to stare at him straight on. Greg's face conveyed to Sam that he expected him to ride with her in the ambulance.

Sam nodded in acknowledgement then asked what everyone had been thinking. "How did this even happen?"

Spike approached Sam and Greg, shock and dread still filling his facial features. He held up an object in his gloved hand. "I think this had something to do with it." In his hand he held a three foot long pipe, coated in Jules's blood.

**Additional Author's Note:** As you can see, there is going to be quite a bi-polar nature to this story. Little happy bit memories and total angst-y tragedy with some psychology and science thrown in the mix. Hold on my friends, we are on the road to another wild ride. Shout-out to **Tirsh** for (I can't believe I forgot this) giving me the idea for the line about buying a ring at Wal-Mart in the last chapter of _Metaphysical Marathon_ and for answering my question about the correct distinction between "farther" and "further."

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter. Please in particular let me know what you think of the Sam Jules stuff in the first part. I snuck in some foreshadowing bits in there that hopefully I'll remember were foreshadowing and touch on later.

Later gators,

Eals


	3. Forever Counting Sheep

**Author's Note:** Hey, guys! Hope all is well in cyber-land. I'd like to thank everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and placing this story on favorites and alerts. I'm glad everyone is as captivated by this story as I am. I have to say, aside from the **#Flashpointpack** challenge to write a story where someone gets hit with a pipe, I got the idea for this story from an article I read in _Runner's World_. Also, I just really love brain anatomy and function; it's quite fascinating stuff. That being said, I'm approaching this subject from a psychologist's point of view (and a social psychologist who just likes to dabble in bio-psy. at that), not a neurologist's, so if there are any mistakes in this chapter, they're purely my fault.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint, or Remington rifles.

Glasgow

Chapter 2: Forever Counting Sheep

**Day 1**

3pm.

Greg sat, lost in his thoughts, with the rest of the members of SRU Team One, save Raf, in the Emergency Room waiting area anxiously awaiting an update on Jules' condition. It had been nearly two and a half hours since she had arrived, with Sam at her side, but the members of Team One still had not had any word on how she was. Greg supposed that no news was good news at this juncture. To him it signified that they were still able to treat her, that there was still hope, that she wasn't gone. But he still dearly wanted an update; the last words he'd heard the paramedics say as they loaded her onto the ambulance, 'heart rate down to 30 beats per minute,' still haunted his soul.

He thought about how drastically things had changed in such a short period of time. How animated, happy, healthy and vibrant she was this morning juxtaposed with the image of her lying broken, fractured, bleeding, (he shuddered) dying, so small, so fragile, on that roof top just a few short hours later.

Jules and roof tops. This was turning out to be a frequently deadly combination.

Greg thought about how significant this morning had been for him in terms of how he had initiated the process of setting his protégée up to eventually replace him as Team One's sergeant.

Greg looked at his watch: 7:56. He tsked to himself. Jules was usually at least 12 minutes early for work. Now it looked like she might actually arrive late. As his watch ticked over to 7:57, the doors to the elevator slid open to reveal Sam and Jules.

"Constable Callaghan, glad you could make it," he quipped as the couple walked towards him.

Jules rolled her eyes and pointed towards Sam. "Sorry, but SOMEBODY needed his beauty sleep." She raised an eyebrow and shook her head, but still her love for Sam radiated throughout her entire being.

"Hey!" Sam protested. "You wouldn't like me if I wasn't pretty!"

Jules chuckled and playfully shoved him towards the men's locker room. "Really, Sarge, what's with the stern face? I'm not actually late." She returned a stern look of her own to signify the logic of her statement.

Greg smirked. "Well, you didn't unlock the doors to the shop and turn on all the lights before anyone else arrived, so I was beginning to worry." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "I've got a word I need to have with you in the briefing room for a minute before you suit-up."

Jules let him guide her, but had a slight look of consternation on her face. "What's up, Boss?"

Greg chuckled to himself at the look of concern she displayed. She wasn't used to being anything but perfect, and the only times he'd ever had to have these little conferences with her were to remind her that it was okay to be imperfect, to use her humanity to her advantage.

"Have a seat and wipe the concern off your face, Jules. It's making you look like you're 30 instead of 25." Greg smiled at the resulting laugh his comment induced in his protégée.

He continued to smile at her and jumped right into the topic of his interest. "So, the police academy seminar on basic negotiation is coming-up and I want you to teach it." Greg finished his announcement with a prideful grin and waited for Jules' reaction. At first she was shocked, but that soon turned to a raised eyebrow, which melted into an eye roll.

"Really, Boss, the police academy seminar?" Greg frowned at her lack of enthusiasm. "You want me to teach the newbies negotiation? I'd rather spend that time painting my walls a deep burgundy like an Emo kid or something." Greg's frown turned to confusion at her preferred activity. "And besides, Sarge, aren't SRU Sergeants supposed to teach those courses?" Disbelief lined her face at her last sentence, signally to Greg that she didn't think she was capable of performing this job.

Greg responded in slight disbelief himself. "You do realize you're a better negotiator than any of the first negotiators on any of the other SRU teams, right?" He smirked with a successful teacher's pride. "Hell, sometimes when you're talking someone down, I think you're better than me!" There was no animosity in this declaration, nothing but pride and joy in her displayed skills. There was nothing more gratifying to Greg than the realization that he'd taught someone with natural, yet unbridled, ability to be one of the best negotiators in the business.

And at his (he found touching himself) words, Jules managed to do the thing she always somehow managed to do: completely surprise him. She gave him a one eyebrow raised half smirk. "Yeah, and my Remi's collecting dust in the trunk of my SUV."

Greg smiled to himself at the memory of this morning's discussion. He was so proud of her, had so much hope, so many plans for her, and here they seemed to lie at his feet. He'd never met anyone stronger, more quick witted, more ready to put it all on the line for a friend or stranger alike. Never met anyone with more strength of heart. Never met anyone he'd want to take-over for him as sergeant of the most elite SRU Team One as much as he did her. Never believed in anyone like her.

And when he'd had the chance to express these beliefs, she'd gone ahead and surprised him, taught him something again, before the shift even started. She was a sniper; it was her original position on the team, her past. People couldn't run away from their pasts. . .

He thought about how her being a sniper was what landed her in this position, fighting for her life, in the first place. The accomplice, look-out or whatever, had targeted the predictable sniper of this robbery turned hostage situation. The lookout had figured if he took out the sniper, his colleague would be fine. He hadn't thought about how the SRU would have had a back-up plan. H wouldn't have thought of how the sniper he took-out was a sister, daughter, source of inspiration, hero, lover.

Greg looked-up at Sam at this thought.

Sam.

Sam had been nearly catatonic since he flagged the members of Team One down to show them where he was sitting in the waiting room. Since the moment his arm lowered and landed back to sit on his thigh, he'd sat staring off into space, nothingness, probably imagining the nothingness his life would become without Jules.

Greg thought how he should comfort Sam, offer him a hand, offer him a word or two of his Greg Parker Magic.

But he couldn't.

He was too busy questioning his choices on the call. Had Jules' mention of her sniper rifle collecting dust in her SUV influenced his decision? _No_, he thought to himself, _no, she was the best person for the job._

And she was. Ed and Sam were needed to devise an entrance strategy. Raf was a rookie and not a certified sniper. Jules had the best accuracy, a skill that would be important for a call in which a subject had a hostage at gun point.

But still, Greg was troubled by his decisions, and it hurt him to admit that. Jules had become more than a protégée or subordinate to him. She had become more than a colleague or friend. She'd intermittently become a daughter or an equal to him. He respected her opinions more than anyone else on the team. He knew that if there was one piece, one heart, that kept the team together and functional, that kept HIM together and functional, it was Jules. He couldn't imagine losing her, on the team, or in life.

And for this he was selfish. At this point in his mind, he'd have given any other member of his team to take her place in the struggle she was now enduring. He would have gladly taken her place himself with a smile on his face. He thought how the others on the team probably felt the same way.

He looked up at Sam again. The man was broken, burning. "Sam," he began in a gentle tone. Sam didn't move an inch or look at Greg at all. Greg could see blood seeping through the bandage on his arm. "Sam, your arm is still bleeding. You have to get that properly patched-up."

Sam broke out of his catatonia verbally, but still didn't move a measure. "I'm not leaving her, Sarge."

Greg sighed and rose to sit next to Sam and put a hand on his good shoulder. "She's not going anywhere, Sam."

Sam flung Greg's hand off and stood-up violently. "How did this happen?" he shouted. "She had our backs up there, but nobody had hers. The area should have been contained! There was an accomplice, and the area wasn't contained!" Sam was on the verge of tears from his rage and worry, but he held them in. "That's their only job, damn-it! That's the uniforms' only job during a call! Keep the damn area contained!"

Greg was at a loss for comforting words to share with Sam, because, in all honesty, he felt the same way. Never before had he been so ashamed at his own police force.

He edged forward to give Sam a comforting hug, but was beat to that action by, of all people, Ed. Greg had forgotten that Ed and Spike were in the waiting room too, so intent was he on his own thoughts and Sam's catatonia.

"It's okay, Sam. We'll get the guy," Greg heard Ed comfort in a deeper voice than normal, almost as if he was on the verge of exacting vengeance himself.

Greg sighed again and looked at his watch. The digits looked larger than normal, like he was hyper aware of them. He zeroed in on the numbers. 3:17. Saint Patrick's Day. Jules was third generation Irish—

"Family of Officer Julianna Callaghan?" a doctor broke into Greg's thoughts.

Sam found a way to break-out of the reluctant embrace Ed had him in and stood in front of the doctor. "We're Jules' family."

The physician looked skeptical. "I understand the police brotherhood and all, but, really? She doesn't have any blood relations here?"

Greg stepped forward and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. "I believe that if you look at her forms, you'll find me, Gregory Parker, and Sam Braddock as her one and two emergency contacts."

Sam seemed to flinch at this information as if he was completely unaware that Jules had chosen him over a blood relative for such delicate medical matters. "And Michelangelo Scarlatti, Edward Lane, Kevin Wordsworth, and Rafik Rousseau would be on there too if there was space," Sam made his first truly coherent sentence in the last three hours.

Greg was proud of him.

"Well," the doctor continued, "Julianna—"

"No!" Sam cut him off. "Her name's Jules. She hate's Julianna. It makes her feel like her dad's yelling at her for not washing the dishes or milking the cow." The rest of Team One stared at him. "The Callagans only had one cow." He shrugged and smiled to himself at the reminiscence of this memory. "Her dad thought it was necessary to have at least one cow if they had a farm."

Greg blinked and smiled at Sam. He was surprised Jules had shared such a personal thought with Sam. But then, he also wasn't. This was Sam after all. He wondered if Jules had ever told him that the only person she'd ever let call her 'Julianna' without qualms was Greg himself.

"Jules then," the doctor seemed aggravated. Greg could sympathize. From the man's facial features and body language, Greg could tell he'd been working hard for a very long shift. "Jules has sustained massive trauma to her right temporal and parietal lobes with targeted damage to sections of her right frontal lobe, specifically in her motor cortex." Greg visibly gulped at this information. "The swelling in these areas has affected her hindbrain and midbrain, specifically to the point of disrupting the functions of her medulla oblongata." Greg blanched; he knew where all of this was going. "Which means we've had to insert a breathing tube to assist her respiration."

Sam was becoming more and more of a broken man as this information was disseminated.

The doctor was tired, soul weary. He used medical knowledge and speak as a buffer against what he really felt about the situation. "The swelling is so sever, we had to remove a piece of her skull to give it room to recede. If it doesn't reduce significantly in the next 24 hours, we may have to remove a piece of the affected area in her brain."

Ed swore at this news while Sam nearly retched. "You want to freak'n lobotomize her!" he shouted. Ed and Greg stepped forward to restrain him with all their strength. Their own nerves were frayed at the seams, but they worked to help their team-mate as much as they could.

The doctor quickly became more animated to defend himself. "With affected brain tissue, there is the idea of brain plasticity, which means that unaffected tissue may eventually be able to compensate for damage done to functions of other areas."

"What kind of problems would the damage to the areas you just mentioned cause?" Spike questioned the doctor.

The physician looked at Spike. "Damage to the motor cortex would result in the inability to control voluntary muscle movement. The parietal lobe damage would result in a loss of tactile sensation on targeted areas of the body. The temporal lobe damage could affect her hearing. There's also the possibility that her right hippocampus and amygdala, located in the temporal lobes, could be damaged, resulting in problems in forming new memories and with the limbic system controlling emotions and motivations."

Greg gasped and sighed, a realization just hitting him. "Jules is left handed," he whispered. He knew this meant that there was the possibility of her language centers being located on the right side of her brain rather than the left like in most people.

The doctor knew where Greg's mind had led him. "If that's the case, there may be damage to her Broca's and Wernicke's Areas resulting in the loss of the ability to speak or comprehend language, respectively."

Greg's fears for Jules were increasing tenfold with each new piece of information the doctor spooned out and with the doctor's confirmation of his own thoughts. Jules could possibly have Broca's or Wernicke's Aphasia from this damage. What is a negotiator who can't speak or understand language?

"The fact of the matter is, however," the doctor paid no heed to Greg's visible signs of distress. "We won't know exactly what functions have been damaged or to what extent until she wakes up, or rather, IF she wakes-up."

Sam, who had been taking in all of this information on the potential problems the brain damage Jules had suffered could cause as if it would just be used to simply create a challenge that he would help her overcome when she was in recovery, nearly fell over at this word. IF. "What does that mean?" he choked out, grabbing hold of a nearby chair to keep himself steady.

The doctor remained cold and clinical in his relation of facts. "Officer Callaghan scored a 4 on the Glasgow Coma Scale, which is used to measure responsiveness to various stimuli and asses one's consciousness and awareness. A normal, conscious score is 15; a score of 3 or lower is considered a vegetative state in which a person may never regain consciousness or awareness."

"She's in a coma?" Sam asked in shocked disbelief. Greg could read on his face that this all was becoming less and less theoretical and all too real for him by the minute. "How long will that last?" His voice had become a whisper.

"That's indeterminable. Maybe a few days, maybe years. She may never wake-up. At this point, I can't promise you that she'll make it through the night."

Greg managed to contain his own dread and grief at these words to hold his hands out to steady Sam. If he was being truthful with himself, Greg would realize he wasn't just trying to hold up and give comfort to Sam, he was seeking an anchor, some comfort, for himself. This couldn't possibly be happening. Jules was strong; there was no way he would lose his heart.

"Even if she does make it through the night," the doctor plowed on seemingly completely oblivious to the path of destruction that was left in his words' wake. "The first week after sustaining trauma like this is critical. She'll be at risk for fevers, more seizures, and new bleeding, all of which could threaten her life." The doctor seemed to take a moment to break-out of his coldly clinical manner. "Look, I know this is all a lot to take in, but I just want to be perfectly clear with this prognosis; giving you some Pollyanna picture would just be cruel on my part. The fact of the matter is, this situation is quite dire." He paused seeing the looks on all the men's faces at this warning. "But, the fact that she was in such good physical and mental shape does put her at a greater advantage than most people in her position."

Sam looked as if he was on the verge of returning to his near catatonic state at the word 'was' uttered by the physician. "Can we see her?" he requested quickly, his voice breaking.

The doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not. The situation is still too critical, which is why I should really be getting back to the ICU now."

Greg took his hand off Sam's shoulder to observe the normal niceties of civilized society and to shake the man's hand as if he was on auto-pilot. "Thank you, Doctor. . ." He'd never even bothered to catch the man's name.

With weary eyes, the doctor nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned to return to work with a sigh. It couldn't be easy dealing with such traumatic cases every day for a living. Again, Greg felt he could relate to the doctor.

As the physician strode down the hall back to the ICU, Sam turned, paused, then violently punched the wall in front of him with his still bleeding left arm.

**Additional Author's Note: **If you notice, every cop on this show who's not an SRU officer is portrayed as either a blithering idiot or a dirty cop. Of course I had to have that play into this story. Also, the thing about Jules looking 30 instead of 25 comes from a conversation **SYuuri** and I had on Twitter in which she eventually said "Amy usually looks like she's 25" at the same time as I tweeted "she usually looks 15 years younger." Great minds think alike, my friend.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter. Yeah, it got pretty technical. **Please let me know if you have any questions**. PS: Can I just go on a tiny rant about how much I love the amygdala for a moment; I just love the amygdala. I think it's such a cool structure. Fear, anxiety, anger, . . .all the fun stuff! Plus, in high school AP Psychology the memory device we learned for its function was "Amy gets mad." I just always thought it was so funny that this amorphous girl was always going around being mad all the time. Such an interesting brain structure. : )

Peace,

Eals


	4. How'd You Touch My Soul That Day

**Author's Note:** As always, thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and placing this story on favorites and alerts. Yeah, got pretty technical and dark last chapter. This chapter is a little lighter at times, but the angst remains. In particular, Spike's part is quite angst-y. I have always wanted to have the opportunity to do something with the philosophy of Solipsism (the idea that 'I alone am conscious,' or 'I alone exist'), and Spike in this story is the perfect person to (at least temporarily) turn into a Solipsist.

I don't own or have right s to Flashpoint, Jeep, _A Charlie Brown Thanks Giving_, or the Blue Jays or Phillies baseball teams.

Glasgow

Chapter 3: How'd You Touch My Soul That Day?

Spike stood in stunned silence as the ER doctor enumerated all of the potential problems and complications Jules might have as a result of this traumatic brain injury. It was all just too much for him to truly wrap his head around. But he still valiantly tried to grasp it all.

_Jules is in a coma, not conscious or aware. May never be conscious or aware again. . ._

"I can't promise that she'll even make it through the night."

_What if no one is really conscious or aware? What if _I _am the only one who's truly conscious and aware, the only one who really exists? Everything else is just a figment of my own personal reality. Self-created, Or, no, no. I couldn't have created this reality where Jules was shot, Lew was blown-up, Jules got anthrax, got her skull bashed in because I was in the truck, _AGAIN_!, not out in the field where I could have been there to spot her, could have had her back like Sam said. . ._

_I'm always in the truck with my gadgets and games when I really should be out there having my team-mates' backs. Shouldn't be in the truck telling Sarge the _main_ thing he needs to focus on is getting the hostage out of the subject's hands. . ._

_No, I couldn't create this. Couldn't be the one to do these horrible things to my friends. Couldn't be the one to make these horrible choices for myself. . ._

_So, it's not me, not me, nothing I created. Maybe some higher power, God like Ma taught me, some higher power made me the only one conscious, awake, aware, real, in existence. . ._

_No, wait, that may not be it either. What if _I'm_ not _REALLY_ conscious and aware? What if _I _don't even really exist? I'm just part of someone else's reality, the only person who's conscious, aware, exists?_

_What if in her current state, _BECAUSE_ of her current state, _Jules_ is the only one who's _TRULLY_ conscious and aware? Yeah. We have it all backwards—_

"This situation is quite dire."

_Jules is the only one who _REALLY _exists now. We're all just figments, players in _HER_ consciously aware reality. We're_—

SLAM!

Spike's Solipsism reverie was cut short by the jarring sound of Sam's fist bashing into the hospital wall.

Spike blinked and looked-up.

Sam barely made a sound of discomfort at the point of impact. "Ermph," he lightly uttered.

Sarge, emerging from his own thoughtful state, reacted an instant before Spike could. "Whoa, Sam, whoa." His voice grew from surprised and angered to fatherly in an instant. "Whoa, Sam." Sarge took Sam's now bleeding hand in his own and directed Sam's attention to his still bleeding upper arm. "Now you have to get your arm patched-up and this hand," Sarge paused to examine Sam's now injured knuckles more thoroughly, "mangled piece of flesh, X-Rayed." Sarge gave a fatherly smile. "What's Jules gonna think when she wakes up to see this hang'n off your shoulder?"

Sam smiled, probably thinking of the thoughts of how Jules would treat him if he showed up at her house with a mangled, bleeding arm. She'd probably beat him up. _She could, she's the only one who exists after all. .._

"Come on Sam, let me take you to an ER doctor to get this fixed," Sarge continued. "Jules wouldn't like to see you with a mangled arm after all." Sarge smiled in an encouraging way. It was as if he was trying to reassure Sam as much as he was trying to reassure himself. Spike wondered if Sarge even thought about the rest of them, the rest of Team One. The rest of the people in the world, like he, Spike himself, who were responsible for Jules being in a coma right now. Who would take them to see an ER doctor, take them away from the scene of the crime JULES' ER doctor enumerated at length?

Who would be there for Spike himself when his other best friend died. . .

He already lost Lew; what would happen if he had to lose Jules too. . .

His fault. Both times.

"I can't just sit here anymore," Ed declared as he stood up, effectively shaking Spike from his self-destructive thoughts. "I've gotta do something." He stared at Spike, shook his head. "I can't stay here and do nothing for her." Ed's voice had grown darker. He seemed to be imploring Spike for his approval. "I've got to do something." He stared at the patches on his uniform arms as if in some deep philosophical debate with himself. He looked back up at Spike. "You'll call, stay with her, tell me if anything changes, right, buddy?" Ed asked him with honest imploring in his voice, heart, and mind.

Spike nodded in agreement. If he couldn't be there to have his team-mate's back when she needed it the most, he would be here to have her back, for however long it would take, while she was in a coma.

Maybe if she regained consciousness, awareness, they all would. Maybe if she regained consciousness, everyone would exist once more.

XXXXXX

Sam sat on the edge of an examination table as his arm and hand were being bandaged and scrutinized, respectively.

"What did the wall do to you?" the intern attending to his fractured hand joked.

"It existed," Sam answered in a monotone, his eyes staring straight at her without the hint of a smile. They begged her to stay professional and get the job done as quickly as possible.

Confused by his no-nonsense response, the intern examined his hand more thoroughly. "Well, Constable," she smiled at his handsome features. She soon frowned at his lack of response. She thought how he was either taken or gay and swore silently to herself in dismay. "Looks like you may have fractured your hand. We'll need to take X-Rays to confirm."

"No," Sam spat-out in a disgruntled tone. He wasn't intent on spending any more time away from the near presence of Jules than he had to.

Greg, who was standing to the side of the table Sam was sitting upon, unobtrusively stepped forward. "Maybe there's something you could do to speed this process up?" Sam looked at him in confused wonder as if he had forgotten Greg's existence in the world let alone the examination room. Greg patted his shoulder before he began again. He smiled one of his patented 'all mouth, but no eyes' smiles he usually reserved for subjects. His in-genuine exterior struck Sam's heart, enlightened him for the first time. Greg was suffering as much as he was. Jules was like a protégée, partner, friend, and daughter all wrapped in one for him. But, he felt like a patriarch, the leader of this family that was Team One. He was keeping strong for Sam while he kept busy for himself and Jules.

"Constable Braddock here and I need to get back to a sick friend." Greg's request, face, and tone were killing Sam. He needed to get his hand fixed and he needed to get back to Jules as quickly as he could. Mostly, right here, in this moment, he needed to wash at least half of that painfully fake cheerful look off of Greg's face.

Sam quickly jerked his head up in acquiescence of Greg's suggestion to quicken things up.

The intern fed both Sam and Greg a challenging look. "Well, the hand's broken. To speed things up, I would have to set it blindly, by hand, without X-Rays to guide me." She raised her eyebrows at the men to emphasize her point. "And if you want me to REALLY speed things up, I would have to set this without giving time for a pain killer to take effect."

Without skipping a beat, Sam responded, "Do it."

Greg looked skeptically at him. "Sam, are you sure? That could be VERY painful." The concern in Greg's eyes was just killing Sam even more. Greg needed to save his concern for Jules. . .

"I'll be fine, Boss," Sam assured with the same straight, stern, nearly emotionless face he had been wearing since he'd let all his pent-up emotions about Jules being cerebrally maimed by bashing his fist into the wall 10 minutes ago. He stared back up into the intern's eyes to seal the deal of his intended course of treatment.

The intern approached Sam more closely as she slowly shook her head for effect. "This is gonna hurt. . ."

She placed her hand on top of Sam's and began to work.

Sam felt her hand grasp his and was immediately transported back to a memory of a date with Jules in which she'd grasped his hand, but in a gentler manner.

"You're holding my hand, Jules," Sam sang-out in mock imitation of Peppermint Patty of Charles Schulz lore.

"Shut-it, Priscilla, and listen to what I'm tell'n you," Jules commanded, continuing his reference to _A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving_. He thought how much that sealed the deal of his attraction to her.

The purpose of Jules hand resting firmly, in no shy manner, on his was that she was sitting in the passenger seat of her manual transmission Jeep attempting to 'teach' Sam how to drive stick shift. He'd been on the team a few months now and had 'admitted' to her over a late night coffee that he'd 'never learned to drive standard.' He'd been fishing for a chance to be close and alone with her in a setting that might lend itself to more physical possibilities. Ever since he'd first laid eyes on her, watched her pack-away her sniper rifle with the skill and assurance of a professional, he'd had one word on his mind: sexy. He found her so damn sexy and had cavalierly decided that he would make it his current ambition, goal, to conquer her. He would have her, claim her, love her for that one moment of bliss, because she was forbidden fruit as a team-mate and exotic fruit as a female sniper.

And thus, he'd so far seen this whole affair, which she adamantly assured him was just nascent 'friendship' and nothing more, as a game, truly just an activity, quest he had to conquer.

What he hadn't anticipated was what he would feel radiating throughout his entire being as her bare flesh touched his.

Things were getting a lot more complicated than he'd anticipated.

"Okay, so, listen-up," Jules continued, her hand now clutching the top of his more firmly. "First off, it's completely girly that you've made it to your 30's without learning how to drive stick." She shook her head, raised an eyebrow, and frowned at him in disgust at this thought. "Second, now that the car is on, rev the engine and gently ease your foot off the clutch." She used her free right hand to signify the use of nonchalance in his foot's movements.

Sam made a face of concentration, revved the gas, and purposefully pulled his foot off the clutch too soon in one quick motion. The car immediately stalled.

Jules' hand reflexively grasped his more firmly on the stick shift before pulling off to contain her annoyance by brushing the soft, short strands of the bangs lining her forehead. "That's okay, Sam. You just popped the clutch. No big deal." She sighed and placed her hand back on his where it still resided in first gear, waiting _oh so_ patiently to be guided into second. "The hard part in learning stick shift is really just getting into first gear. After third, it's just smooth sailing," she tried to be encouraging.

Sam chuckled in a friendly manner. "Mmmmm, I love when you talk dirty to me."

Jules picked her left hand up off of his right and smacked him on the shoulder while giving him a 'what the Hell is WRONG with you?' look. "Just kidding, Jules," he said with all the joking incorruptibility he could muster. "Show me what I need to do, please." He added that last word with a touch of child-like innocence. Her annoyance melted under his gaze. Her left hand settled back onto his right.

"Alright, Sam, let's try it again." After a brief moment of smiling back into his faux innocent eyes, Jules was back to being all business. "Now, rev the engine gently and ease-up on the clutch. Once you feel it catch, you can let your foot off the clutch completely." She stared back straight into his crystal blue eyes to make sure he had understood her direction. Her intense gaze and encouraging half smile melted Sam's cocky exterior a bit.

This game of his was getting more and more complicated the more time he spent with her.

A little flustered by the unanticipated feelings the extraordinary lady sniper sitting next to him was engendering in him on a visceral level, he started to rev the engine too high and unintentionally pulled his foot off the clutch too quickly. The Jeep stalled. Sam had the urge to swear at himself.

"Ahhhh, Sam! You popped the clutch again! Stop popping the clutch! You need to not rev the engine so high, wait to feel the catch, and ease off the pedal." Jules worked to contain the irritation she felt towards Sam for stalling her beloved Jeep twice in a row. She picked her hand up off of his on the stick shift and touched her own temples with both hands as she blew out a breath in exasperation at both Sam for stalling her car and herself for losing her cool with him.

Sam thought how cute she looked when slightly exasperated. He couldn't resist. "'Pop the clutch,' 'wait for the catch.' WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!" He turned his head to give her a pouty face and confused eyes.

The moment his gaze met hers she melted once again. She reached out to grasp his right shoulder with her left hand. Another unanticipated wave of feeling coursed through his body at her simple touch.

"Sorry, Sam. Didn't mean to get huffy with you." She sighed at herself. "I guess I just have a tendency to expect the best from everyone, at all times, just like I always expect the best from myself." She held his gaze with a serious stare as if she was trying to impart more significant knowledge on him than her words were really conveying. "You should just know that I don't suffer imperfection very easily. It's an ironic character flaw."

She had just shared an intimate piece of information with him about her inner life and personality, and Sam felt elatedly privileged to have been judged worthy enough to be allowed such knowledge, such a glimpse into the person she really was under her tough exterior. And as he stared at her straight on, continued to feel her hand on his shoulder, he thought about how she was just about the most complex, challenging, and beautiful woman he had ever met. He thought about how winning his pre-set personal game and conquering her for just one night or even just one month may not be enough for him. "I think you're imperfections make you a beautiful person, Jules."

At his words, she smiled, broke her gaze, and lifted her hand off of his shoulder. "Thanks, Sam." She shook her head, a bit embarrassed at his words, and placed her hand back on top of his on the stick shift. "You ready to try again?"

Sam gave her one quick nod and a look of determination. . . And then he fed her a line made of cheese. "With you by my side, I think I can do anything."

Jules snorted at his obvious pick-up line. "Right, Braddock." She squeezed his hand tighter a moment and chuckled to herself. "We'll go again."

Sam nodded and faced forward.

"Oh, and Sam?" she made him pause for a moment before he began to 'try' to drive again. "How long have you REALLY known how to drive standard?"

As the intern finished setting and bandaging Sam's broken hand, he chuckled to himself about this memory. Of course Jules, talented people reader and profiler that she was, had been onto his fake claim of not knowing how to drive manual transmission from the beginning. She used the surprise moment she did to reveal this fact to also reveal the fact that she was onto the entire game he was making of her.

Sam chuckled at and chided himself for the cocky son of a bitch he had been for believing that he could play her. The cocky son of a bitch he had been for even seeing her as a potential object of conquest to begin with.

This thought and memory reminded him of a conversation he'd had with Jules a few days after they had been cleared to stay on the team together.

They were watching a Blue Jays-Phillies interleague play baseball game together, entwined in each other's arms on the couch. Jules had lifted her head up off of his chest where it had been resting and said out of the blue, "Ya know, I'm really glad we broke-up the first time and were able to have this second chance a couple of years later. We really wouldn't have worked out the first time."

Sam, completely caught off guard, had frowned and pulled her up to sit at eye-level with him. "What are you talking about? I've loved you since the moment I first saw you."

Jules had grinned and leaned in to give him a soft kiss. She smirked. "No. You loved a challenge the moment you saw me. You didn't really love me until a bullet entered my rib-cage on a sky-scrapper roof."

A sky-scrapper roof.

"Alright, Officer Braddock. You're all patched-up," the intern gushed at Sam, fully bringing him back into the present. "I hope I didn't hurt you too much."

Sam lightly shook his head and got up off of the table he'd been sitting on to walk past where Greg stood and back towards the ER waiting room on autopilot.

He thought back again to the memory of that day with Jules in her Jeep, a day when his game of conquest had begun to transform into the love that, Jules was right, he never fully felt until a bullet tore through her rib-cage on that roof top. As such, he now realized the feel of her skin against his was something he hadn't fully appreciated at the time. It was something, a memory never fully explored before, he clung to now in his time of need. Her time of need. Her time of dying.

**Additional Author's Note:** Spike's section was the first time I've ever written a (piece of) a fic entirely in one person's perspective to the point of almost making it told in second person. That's why Greg is called "Sarge" in that section; Spike is pretty much both the subject and narrator of that section. A lot of the stuff about Jules teaching Sam how to drive manual transmission came from real life. When my Dad taught me how to drive standard (about 2 hours after I'd just run (for the first time ever) for 2 hours straight, or 14 miles, (with hill repeats!) with my BFF), he kept yelling at me for 'popping the clutch' and kept telling me to 'wait for the catch.' Seriously, when you're learning how to drive stick shift you have no freak'n clue what 'popping the clutch' and 'waiting for the catch' means! (And now I'm realizing how dirty that sentence sounded. . .). Thanks to **MollyLyn** and **Tirsh** for answering my question about if Canadians generally learn to drive manual or automatic in Driver's Ed. Also, thanks to **Sules** for letting me use the "Imperfections make us beautiful" idea.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter. In particular, please leave me your thoughts on Sam's cocky game he was playing with Jules in the beginning of their relationship. Honestly, I really don't think he TRULLY loved her until she was shot and at least initially only viewed her as an object of conquest. Also, I don't think they would have worked out the first time they dated as they transformed into completely different people from how they started by the time they got back together.

Thanks and peace,

Eals


	5. So I Ask You Now

**Author's Note: **Before I give my thanks to all of you lovely readers, I need to give my thanks to **Playergurl89** for the whole "Cerebrally Maimed Jules" thing. Yes children, that is one of the secrete names of this story, and I used that idea last chapter without giving my friend credit. Other fun name: Head Wound; frig'n love you **MollyLyn**! I have a secrete sub-title for this story. I'll tell ya later. Anyho, eternal thanks to all who have been reading, reviewing, and placing on favorites and alerts. "Ya'll" make my world go round. And now for a chapter that a lot of people never thought I would write or the initiation of a storyline no one ever thought I'd peruse. Check it out, man. I'm sweet that way.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint.

Glasgow

Chapter 4: So I Ask You Now

**Day 1**

9:15 pm, After Night Fall

Ed Lane had always considered himself a man of action. He was never one to sit around and wait passively for the world or simple circumstances within his life to pass him by or transgress without his input. As tactical Team Leader of Team One, he often suggested less lethal or hard tactical at moments when Greg and Jules, sometimes even Sam, wanted to find success with negotiation, even when that negotiation seemed hopeless. He'd always been a man of action whenever he thought his family, Sophie and Clark, more recently the apple of his eye Izzy, were in trouble. He'd ordered protection details for them when he'd feared for their safety as a result of the more negative aspects of his profession several times. Yes, Ed Lane had always been a man of action.

But that action had always been action within the bounds of the law.

Not so this night.

What he had planned for this night was to execute more of a form of street justice; actions not necessarily or particularly condoned by the Metro (or any, for that matter) Police Department, but actions that REALLY got the job done. No bureaucrats, no legal documents. He alone would be the judge and jury, at least to the extent of getting the suspect (no, not subject, never subject now) of Jules' maiming into custody.

He knew Jules would understand. He knew, had heard second hand from Spike, that on occasion Jules had used her own brand of Street Justice to attain information from subjects.

The matter in question where Spike's story had come from was when Greg was trapped in an abandoned building turned meth-lab. While Ed, Sam, Wordy, and Leah had been frantically been searching throughout the building for the Sarge and talking down a subject who held a girl in his gun-wielding hands, Jules and Spike had been outside with an apprehended subject attempting to get the location of the Boss out of him. Apparently Jules had turned off the mic of her com link and used heavy handed methods to get the information. When Spike had told Ed the entirety of the events that had taken place that day after a few beers at The Goose, he had done so with fear. It was obvious to Ed that Spike feared Jules. And from the look on Greg's face after Jules had given him a tough love talk on his responsibility to stay alive for the team, Ed could tell that Greg feared Jules in certain ways too. Truth was, they all did.

Ed knew that the explanation for Jules' harsh use of Street Justice that day had been influenced by the recent loss of Lew, one of her best friends. Ed knew that this made her hyper-aware of the possibility of losing Greg that day, someone she'd looked-up to as a teacher, father figure, close friend. He knew Greg and Jules' bond had only increased since then, and really, since when Jules replaced Lew as a profiler while still retaining all of the other roles she fulfilled on the team.

Jules' heavy handed Street Justice had been triggered by her concern for Greg's wellbeing on that day. So too was Ed's planned use of Street Justice on this night, only it was for Jules rather than Greg, and to avenge her rather than to save her.

Ed didn't know if anyone, even her lion-hearted self, could save her now.

And although he could choose to delude himself and declare that he was going after the person who had hit her, maimed her, put her in a coma from which she may never awaken, in an effort to take a dangerous, thoughtless potential killer, Jules' potential killer, off the streets, he knew in his heart that he was really on a mission of vengeance.

And so, after he had left the ER waiting room, after hearing the dreadful extent of the brain injuries she had sustained at the hands of a brutal look-out turned goon, he had driven one of the SRU SUV's back to the barn. He had used the SRU computers, mostly Spike's personal equipment, which he had had to waste valuable time hacking into, to find all the information he possibly could on Preston Larson. He had found all of Larson's known hang-outs and addresses (as Larson had had no know permanent address) and was now in the process of checking them all out, single handedly, on his own, in his own way.

He was now in his street clothes and driving his own personal vehicle, but he still gave-off the unmistakable aura of a cop. Every 'residence' (and he thought of how loosely this term was being used in its application to the life of Preston Larson) he had thus far visited had been condemned buildings or vacant apartments. He gave a head twitch and a dark smile to himself. There was only one residence left on his list, and he knew for certain that it wasn't a condemned and or likely empty building.

As he drove through the night to what he hoped would be the final destination he'd have to 'investigate,' his personal cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the call screen and swore to himself. Sophie. He had completely forgotten to call her and give her a heads up on the situation, an excuse for why he wasn't home or at the hospital.

He clicked on the phone and brought it to his ear. "Hey Soph—"

"Eddie," Sophie frantically cut him off. "I've been watching the news all day." Sophie paused as if not willing to verbalize the information to which she had become privy. "They just released the name."

Ed sighed. He really didn't feel like he could take care of his wife's concerns right now. He knew Sophie and Jules were close, especially since Sophie had Izzy and Jules had taken every opportunity she could to baby sit the baby. Ed frowned for a moment at the thought of how Jules probably had a touch of baby fever and an excellent man with whom to have these hypothetical babies. The thought of her never having the chance to do so, never having a chance to bring a child into the world who might inherit her determination, fire, and wit broke his heart and only strengthened his resolve to continue on the mission he'd started.

After the split second it took him to realize all this information, his thoughts returned to his wife, the mother of his own children. "Yeah, it's been busy," he began evasively. "Haven't had a chance to give you a call about everything yet." Ed grew silent. He couldn't and wouldn't let on any more.

Ed could almost hear Sophie crying on the other side of the phone. "Is she. . ."

Ed summoned all of the courage he had and answered as clearly, honestly, and firmly as he could while still retaining a concerned and loving tone. "It's bad, Soph."

Ed could hear Sophie becoming inconsolably upset on the other end. His anger at the entire situation increased. Now the jack-ass who'd maimed Jules was making his wife fall to pieces.

"Listen, Soph. I've got some things I need to take care of with this case," Ed said as he pulled-up to the parking lot of his destination. "I'll call you if we have any new information. Love you." He hung-up the phone without waiting for a reply. He couldn't allow his wife's effusion of love and devotion to distract him from his goal.

Ed stepped out of his car and climbed the stairs to apartment 302 of the building. It was a known residence of Larson's girlfriend. Reports had said that several people had been known to squat there. When Ed came to the door, he resisted the urge to kick it open and merely knocked. "Katherine Hill, please open the door," he called.

When the door opened an inch, Ed pushed it wide and forced his way in. The woman who had opened the door, Ed now saw, was holding a child in her arms. She stared back at Ed in fear. She was speechless in her terror.

"Katherine Hill, I believe you were in a relationship with Preston Larson, is that correct?" Ed paid no heed to her consternation.

The young woman nodded as she trembled. She stopped, hiked her child up farther on her arm and tilted her head at Ed. "What do you mean, 'were'?"

Ed didn't have time to coddle a hostage taker's baby momma. "Ms. Hill, Preston Larson attempted to hold-up a restaurant today and was killed after he held a hostage at gun-point and shot a police officer," Ed replied without emotion. The young child in Katherine's harms was triggering his sympathy, especially since Izzy was about the same age.

The woman began to shake her head and cry in disbelief. "No, no, no, he was supposed to be done with that life!" she cried as she began to pace. "We had a baby, we had a family. He said he was done with all that! He promised me! He promised Eddie!"

Ed paused before saying any more. The child's name was Eddie, Ed, Edward. He was Izzy's age. Living in a place like this with no father, Eddie was likely to have a hard life. In a different time, in different circumstances, Ed thought how that could have been his own life.

Little Eddie began to cry at his mother's anger, pain, and consternation. Ed melted slightly. "Ms. Hill—"

"Kat, call me Kat, like Pres," she urged him. Ed conceded her this and nodded his head.

"Kat, Preston had an accomplice, a look-out, someone who hurt one of my friends very badly." He reached out and rubbed the sobbing baby's back like Izzy liked to be comforted when she was upset. Little Eddie's cries turned to gentle sobs as he clung to his mother.

Kat Hill shook her head. "I told him I didn't want to ever know any of his friends from the life. I told him I not only wanted him outta it, I didn't want anything from his past in Eddie's life."

Ed stopped rubbing Eddie's back and put his hand on Kat's shoulder while he stared at her straight in the eye. "My friend may die, Kat. If you don't tell me everything you know, you could be charged as an accomplice. Eddie could have to grow-up without both a mother and a father." Ed fought his sense of sympathy to be realistic; he fought his sympathy for Jules.

Kat deflated and shook her head. "I don't know noth'n. I just live for Eddie now."

The look on Kat's face convinced Ed of her sincerity. He shook his head and turned to go, having never even left his name or the fact that the name of the child of the man who had inadvertently caused the maiming of his friend was his name-sake.

9:30 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

Ever since returning to the hospital waiting room after having his entire arm examined and fixed, Sam had sat lost in thought, back to his catatonia.

He thought of all that had happened that day: The morning vacation debate, the playful banter on the car ride to work, the playful banter of him telling her she wouldn't like him if he wasn't pretty. The absence of the sound of a Sierra shot. . .

The Feel of her hand squeezing his as they left the house for work that morning. The way she silently returned his 'I love you.'

He thought how she may not ever be able to do that again. He thought how she may never be able to even speak again rather than just return a tangible sign of their mutual love.

He imagined her hand in his. He imaged kissing it and seeing the lively smile form on her lips, her cheeks, her brow, in her eyes. He imagined her leaning in to kiss him in return. He imagined himself gently opening his lips and inviting her to do the same. He imagined running his hands along her body, her sides, her hips, her face, her hair. He imagined her smiling at his gestures and working to add a few of her own as she ran her hands around the nape of his neck. He imagined pulling away, ever so slightly, to look into her deep and thoughtful eyes to say 'I love you' and hearing in return, '—

"Hey guys. Came as soon as I could," Raf rushed over with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

Greg shook his head and motioned for Raf to slow down. Spike looked-up in confusion as if he was being re-integrated into reality.

Sam took one look at Raf and strode towards him in anger. He grabbed the flowers Raf had, tore them out of his hand, and violently threw them into the nearest trash can. "Jules hates flowers in hospitals," he said softly so as to explain his actions. He cast his eyes down in Raf's direction.

Raf held out his hand and grabbed Sam's shoulder. "I get it, man. Don't worry, I get it."

**Additional Author's Note: **Secrete sub-title of this story: Ed is Batman. I hope you like how

I'm writing Ed with his whole vigilante thing. Yeah, bet I surprised many.

**Please leave a review** to tell me what you think of this chapter, especially the thing with Ed's quest. Personally, I think how the whole thing developed was kind-a beautiful with the little baby. Didn't know I was gonna do that until I was writing.

Peace,

Eals


	6. Dreaming it Was You

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and still adding this story to favorites and alerts. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your simple acts that make me feel appreciated. Well now, that's like that Leslie Nielsen movie, "It's nice to be nice to the nice." That's probably a quote from something else, but. . .

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint.

Glasgow

Chapter 5: Dreaming it Was You

**Day 1**

10:30 pm

As Ed Lane drove through the night, he worked hard to block-out the images of Preston Larson's baby morphing into the visage of his daughter Izzy that intermittedly clouded his mind. He had absolutely no time for sentimental thoughts of his family or sympathy for the now high in probability hard life awaiting an innocent bystander of the life the hostage taker chose, if even for the briefest of moments. He had a mission, and this mission was yet to be completed.

He pressed the accelerator of his personal vehicle harder as he forced his mind's eye to view images of Jules, how shrunken and defeated she might look in the hospital bed she now unwillingly laid claim to, how small and defeated she'd looked for the short time he'd seen her with her defenses down while she lay unconscious after being nearly killed by the bullet he still felt responsible for on his darkest nights. He saw the brief, yet somehow inexplicably eternal image of the glimpse he'd caught of her as they loaded her into an ambulance 10 hours earlier. Her immobility and unresponsiveness, EMT's manually forcing oxygen into her lungs, the right side of her delicate skull smashed in. . .

There were so many times when in the middle of a faux argument Ed and Jules had teased each other about having thick skulls. The image of her from earlier today now seared into his brain proved to him more than any playful thought experiment that that accusation was not true of her. The metaphor had become completely lost on him. He pressed the accelerator harder. . .

. . .Just as he had always used to push Jules harder. To be better, faster, stronger. To prove herself as a female warrior among men. He'd pushed her harder as a rookie than he had anyone else ever under his command. The SRU had never seen a woman who could hack-it before; he wanted her to prove that she was there by merit rather than just some affirmative action political stunt. She'd always far surpassed his expectations.

Smiling at the thought of the long past remembered image of Jules beating Lew in a rappelling race, when Lew was more than just Young, but real and whole, Ed took a sharp right hand turn and arrived at his destination.

Ed knew that the mission of Street Justice he had set out upon was one that he could not accomplish on his own. As an SRU officer, there were certain limitations and restrictions to his job. The jurisdiction of the SRU only advanced as far as attaining intelligence and background information on subjects while they were experiencing the worst moments of their lives. The SRU did not have post-incident investigation jurisdiction, and as such, the members of the SRU did not have access to the fingerprint and DNA evidence results collected after the commission of a crime. Access to such evidence was granted to detectives and other investigative officers.

And thus Ed had no access to the fingerprint evidence found on the lead pipe that had been used to maim Jules, but that did not negate the fact that he had connections by which he could gain access to this evidence.

Ed walked through the door of the Guns and Gangs division and turned towards the direction of Detective Kevin Wordsworth's desk. He knew Wordy had been working a high profile case and thus had been at the station pretty much round the clock for the past week. Therefore, he knew it wasn't just by luck, but by a sense of duty that he had found Wordy still diligently at work at his desk at this late hour. Ed would exploit this sense of duty and dedication to convince Wordy to help him achieve his ultimate goal.

"Wordy," Ed roused his friend from the stack of documents in front of him.

Wordy looked-up at the sound of his former Team Leader's voice and sighed. "Ed, hey. Oh man, it's all over the department. I was about to head over to the hospital to meet you guys once I finished-up this paper work." He pointed down to the papers in front of him and sighed again as if it had just now occurred to him how insignificant the case he was working on was in light of what had happened to Jules this day. "We're getting ready to bust a huge drug ring based down town." Wordy shook his head as if he was ashamed of himself for where he had let his priorities rest.

Ed shook his own head in response. "That's not where Jules needs us now, Wordy."

Ed's straight stare and no non-sense attitude tipped Wordy off to where his friend's thoughts were directed. "Where does she need us, Ed?"

Ed continued to just stare straight at Wordy for a few beats longer before he answered. "You know where. We need the results of the fingerprint analysis done on the prints found on the pipe used on her. We need to go after the sick son of a bitch who did this to her."

Wordy began to shake his head. "No, Eddie, no. I can't let you do that. That's Major Crimes, not even Guns and Gangs. You don't have anywhere NEAR the jurisdiction on this, Ed. It's crossing lines!"

The look on Ed's face suggested that he was fighting the urge to step up and smack some sense into his best friend violently. Righteous fury coursed through his veins. "This isn't just come girl, some victim. This is Jules, Wordy. Some sick piece of scum more than just took a cheap shot at her; he put her in a coma." Wordy's face blanched at this information as Ed continued. "They had to take off a piece of her skull, and they might have to tear out a piece of her brain." Ed shook his head and stepped closer to his longtime friend. He placed his hand on Wordy's shoulder and molded his face into a look of compassion. "This is Julianna Callaghan, Wordy, the girl no one's ever seen back down from a fight." He shook his head slowly and looked Wordy straight in the eye. "But this time, she might not win."

Wordy stared back at Ed in disbelief. "It's that bad, is it?"

Ed gave one quick nod and Wordy closed his eyes and shook his head. "Even working rotating shifts 24 hours a day there's still a back log in evidence processing and analysis." He opened his eyes and nodded. "But I've got a buddy in there who owes me a favor." He stepped around Ed to pick-up his desk phone and began to dial a number. "He can fast track it and have the results to us in no time."

Less than 15 minutes later, Ed and Wordy were on the road heading to the home of repeat offender in armed robbery and burglary, Carter Huxley, which was conveniently less than five miles away from the station.

"What's the plan here, Ed?" Wordy asked seated in Ed's passenger seat.

Keeping his head looked straight ahead and focused Ed answered, "You're the entry specialist, so I figure you kick down the door, and I rush in around you to apprehend the suspect."

Wordy looked skeptical at the verbalization of this plan. "Apprehend? Really, Ed? That's all you plan to do?"

Ed glanced over at Wordy and gave him a brief stern look before turning his attention to the road before them. "As long as he doesn't give me lip."

Wordy still looked skeptical, but decided to take his friend's word for it for the time being.

As they approached the apartment building where Huxley lived, Ed turned off his car's head lights and coasted into a parking spot. As he and Wordy climbed the stairs to the suspect's third floor apartment, Wordy looked over at Ed and noticed for the first time, "You're unarmed?"

Ed scoffed and continued to climb. "I don't need to be armed to handle this punk," he declared in a deep voice.

Wordy kept his gun holstered as he readied his foot to kick in the door and gave Ed a three beat count down with his fingers. After the count of one, Wordy thrashed his foot at the door, knocking it inward. There were three men standing in the kitchen area and Ed signaled Wordy to restrain the two unanticipated men while he strode straight for the man whose image had been plastered into his brain mere minutes earlier. "Carter Huxley," he called out as in his tunnel vision he grabbed Huxley by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him into the living room. Wordy remained in the kitchen with his gun drawn at the two other men shouting, "On your knees, hands where I can see them!" but Ed, so consumed by his own mission, was completely unaware of Wordy's actions.

Upon reaching the confines of the living room, Ed violently threw Huxley to the ground. "Hey, man! What'd you do that for?" the suspect demanded to know as he jumped to his feet and raised his arms in a fighting stance.

Ed's face grew even darker and clouded over in a mask of fury. As if this bastard needed someone to innumerate his sins for him. "You put a gifted and talented police officer, my friend, into a coma. You might have even killed her before day breaks again. It's time to reap what you sow."

The suspect seemed to be surprised to hear the extent of the damage he had caused and was thus caught off guard when Ed punctuated his statement with a quick left jab. Ed soon followed this with a string of boxing combinations. Huxley kept raising his arms as if he was about to return Ed's blows, but Ed never gave him half a second to extend his arms even an inch. The suspect, the man who had cowardly maimed Jules with a heavy pipe from behind, was soon bleeding from his cheeks, eyes, and nose and began to cry and cower away from Ed's reach. "I'm sorry!" he sobbed out.

Ed towered over him while he gave his now swollen knuckles a brief reprieve. "The woman you took-out, Officer Jules Callaghan, is a hero. She's saved countless lives in her time on the force and is 1000 times the person you are." Ed paused to flex his hands as if he was preparing to strike the pipe-man again. "So tell me why, Huxley, you cowardly bastard, why SHE's lying in a hospital bed with her brain swelling and half her skull missing while you, a sniveling piece of worthless scum, are sitting here blubbering like a baby in front of me?" Before Huxley could say a word, Ed bent down to his shrunken level and began to punch him in the face again, releasing all of the pent-up anger he had about Jules being in a coma, Jules fighting to retain ownership of her life, and him not being able to take any action to save her. Ed Lane was a man of action; he defended and protected the people he loved. The man bleeding and crying before him had rendered him action-less.

As Ed drew back his hand to make another blow on the person he, in a very un-SRU like manner, had come to consider an entire waste of human flesh, Wordy caught his arm and pulled him back. "That's enough, Ed," he said gently after seeing the torn look playing upon Ed's face. "I called in back-up. Some uniforms are coming over to take these guys in. It's over," Wordy tried to calm and reassure his friend.

Ed took one last glance at the subject of his personal mission of vengeance, the man who had taken away his ability to act on his close friend's behalf, the man who had broken his signature level-headed calm, and scoffed. "You're right, Wordy," he smiled darkly. "It is over now."

At the end of this sentence, he turned on his heel and walked out of the apartment with swollen and bleeding knuckles and a sense of empty accomplishment towards the mission he had just completed.

XXXXX

11: 30 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

"Sam," Greg called as he placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and awakened him from another one of his tortuous and consuming reveries. "Spike, Raf, and I are going down to the cafeteria for some coffee. Do you want to come? You look like you could use a cup." Greg smiled at him in encouragement.

Fully awakening from his daze, a light bulb went off in Sam's brain. "No, Sarge. I want to stay here. But get a cup for me, will you, please?" Sam gave the best imitation of a hopeful and thankful smile he could to better sell his request.

Greg nodded his head in acknowledgement and patted Sam on the back as he turned to pull a somewhat scatter-brained Spike into a standing position and led him and Raf towards the hospital cafeteria.

Sam waited to watch his three team-mates turn the corner, checked to make sure the coast was clear of doctors and nurses, then rose to sneak through the doors into the ICU.

Although the lights in the hallway of the ICU were frighteningly bright, the lights inside the open windowed rooms were all dimly lit. Sam peeked into each room, but was somehow unconsciously drawn to one at the left side of the end of the hallway. He didn't even have to look through the window to know that that was where his Jules was.

He walked inside the room where she was entrapped in the confines of her own abused brain and took a quick sharp intake of breath. He was devastated by the person lying in the bed before him. This could not be right. This could not be real. The shrunken person hooked-up to at least five different machines before him could not be his strong, quick witted Jules. Not even being confined to a hospital bed could ever make her look this diminished. The person lying before him could not be what was left of the woman he loved.

He needed to touch her, hold her hand so that he could feel her soul and know that at least some part of her was still with him.

As he slowly approached her to test this theory, he was caught in his act of rule breaking by a night nurse. "I'm sorry, sir," the nurse spoke gently so as if not to awaken the resting person in the room. Sam thought how this was ironic. The nurse should be shouting her head off to awaken Jules from her potentially deadly slumber. "You can't be in here."

Sam stared straight at the remnants of the woman he had planned to propose to in just three days' time as he replied, "Neither should Jules."

XXXXX

11:59.59 pm, ?

_ alright, now this is weird; i have no idea where on earth i am; if i am still on earth. something's wrong; something's not right; everything is just black; there's nothing, no form, no reason; i don't know about existence; what actually constitutes existence. . ._

_ maybe this is Hell; there's no way this could be Heaven; Heaven couldn't be anywhere without Sam; Sam's not here; am i here. . ._

_ what if this is Purgatory like Sr. Mary Gram was always going on about in grade school; maybe i should have paid more attention in class; i don't even know what Purgatory is. . ._

_ all i know is that Sam isn't here; i feel like i'm fading out, and Sam isn't here; i don't think i should be here if Sam isn't here. . ._

_ maybe this is Purgatory. . ._

_ and fading out aga—_

**Additional Author's Note:** All credit for the idea of the "pipe-man" goes to **Playergurl89**. I toyed with the idea of having Ed pick-up a bat and ACTUALLY becoming a "bat-man," but no, a little much. . . Also, that last part of coma thinking was purely poetic license. The argument on dreaming and thinking in a coma is still out (although there is new evidence suggesting people dream at different levels of a coma), I refuse to believe that a person (as in their metaphysical and philosophical mind) ceases to exist while they're in a coma. Therefore, I tried to make a bit of a diminutive and fleeting sort of dream, or rather, thought state where I image a person at this point of trauma might exist even if they never remember it. All credit for expressing the punctuation in semi-colons goes to **Shiggity**. The concept actually originated as a joke, but when I found a way to use it for real to express this thought state, but was feeling too chicken to actually go through with it, she encouraged me to do so in her own KC way. Man, that girl cracks me up!

So, please leave a review and let me know what you think. In particular, I wonder what you think about the dream or thought state stuff. Yeah, we all know the Ed stuff was major and will have major consequences. I can't wait to play that out. : ) Anyho, Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed.

Peace, love, and gratitude,

Eals


	7. True Love

**Author's Note: **Hi everyone! Thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and placing this story on favorites and alerts. As always, I'm humbled by and thankful of your actions…And, um, stuff, and, away we go with chapter 6!

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint.

Glasgow

Chapter 6: True Love

**Day 2**

8 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

After being dismissed from Jules' bedside the night before, Sam had returned to the place of his constant vigil in the waiting room. Greg, Spike, and Raf had all been there waiting with his requested coffee. He'd simply shaken his head while mumbling 'washroom' and returning to his seat. Greg had stared with indeterminable significance at him, but said nothing.

Sam had taken the coffee he was given with automatic, pre-programed social norms of gratitude. He'd barely taken a sip since that time as he was once again trapped in his own thoughts. Such thoughts were fleeting, yet captivating.

No one could speak for Ed, but the remainder of Team One had spent the night in the ICU waiting room in sleepless, concerned captivation. All it took to confirm this existence for Sam was one simple look at Spike's dazed, distortedly thinking face, Raf's meaningful frowns and frequent head shakes, and Greg's seemingly eternally valiant attempt at keeping a façade of reassurance on his face. This only confirmed for Sam how badly Greg was really taking all of this. He had childishly internally snorted at the thought that how badly Greg was taking this could never be as bad as he himself was taking it. A fatherly love went only so far; a passionate and compassionate love outlived all. Now Sam internally snorted at himself. He had to remind himself that there was enough suffering in the entire situation to go around and be shared by all. Love on any level was love, and all of the members of Team One loved Jules in their own way.

Sam's musings were interrupted by the approach of a doctor. Sam gave a slight sigh of relief. This morning's doctor was not the same pompous ass of a blunt dirt-bag who had heartlessly disseminated the information of the extent of Jules' injuries. He was not the same sniveling little arrogant snot who, under the guise of remaining professional, had shattered Sam's world. Shattered the whole world, a shattered world that the Earth would be without Jules. He wondered if she was still really on Earth, and if not, if it was already bleeding rivers of sorrow in her absence. Sam knew he himself was…

Sam shook himself from his brief reverie and rose to meet the doctor's approaching form. Hyper-aware of any disturbance in the air around him that might signal the arrival of another vessel of information on Jules' condition, Sam had been the first to react. Greg, Raf, and Spike soon jumped at the significance of Sam's movement and voluntary break from his catatonia.

"Good morning, Officers. I'm Dr. McDonna. Dr. Turner, who spoke with you yesterday, told me you were the family of Julianna Callaghan," Sam cringed slightly at this utterance, "and that I should call her Jules unless I want to get on the bad side of a SWAT team." The doctor smiled at this. _So Turner had relayed the important yet non-essential and ultimately miniscule information about Jules' name_, Sam thought. _Maybe he wasn't such an un-feeling ass after all_.

Sam took in Dr. McDonna's appearance and self-presentation cues. His body language wasn't tense or defeated. The ghost of a smile from his joke about SWAT teams still lingered on his face. Sam unclenched his fingers from the fist he just now noticed he'd balled them into in his terror of uncertainty. He now didn't anticipate bad news.

"How is she?" Greg spoke first, venturing into the waters of knowledge that Sam still slightly feared hearing about.

McDonna nodded his head. "We just finished a set of new brain scans. Although the swelling hasn't started to recede at all yet, it hasn't gotten worse and there's no sign of new bleeding. The seizures she's been suffering have slowed down in frequency."

Sam didn't really know what any of this information meant, but he figured it was relatively good news. He let a feeling of hope fill his heart for a brief moment.

"She's nowhere near out of the woods yet," the doctor continued, "but I'm confident we won't have to perform any of the brain lesioning Dr. Turner told you might be required yesterday." The remaining members of Team One breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Spike shook his head so as to relieve himself from some unknown internal abstraction and stepped forward. "What about her level on that scale? Her consciousness and awareness? Her…" Spike trailed off as if he was about to add more, but deemed it unnecessary in the grand scheme of this conversation.

Dr. McDonna frowned slightly and sighed at Spike's question. "I'm afraid I'm making this news sound better than it really is, and I don't want to give you all any inaccurate information." Sam's hand fisted into a strong clutch once more. "Although her condition hasn't gotten any worse, it also hasn't gotten any better." Sam fought the urge to slam his unbroken hand into the wall and provide himself with a matching pair of broken extremities. "She's still scoring a 4 of the GCS and like I said, the swelling in her brain hasn't gone down at all yet." Through the veil of his sorrow and rage at this intelligence, Sam caught a glimpse of a tear starting to well in Greg's eye. "But Jules did make it through the night, and that's a triumph in and of itself." McDonna ended on a slight smile as if he was proud of the role he had played in making sure Jules didn't die, truly leave the world, in the course of his watch through the night. "Your friend's a fighter."

A proud yet simultaneously sad grin lined Greg's face where he stood next to Sam. "That she is. Our Jules is tough," he patted Sam's back in assurance. To Sam's ear, Greg sounded like he was trying to convince himself of this fact so as to assure himself that Jules would continue to fight. Sam grasped ahold of this fleeting tethered hope as well.

"Although the situation is still quite critical—" There was that word again, 'quite.' Sam remembered how Dr. Turner had used that word too. In a non-sequitur wandering of his thoughts, he wondered if that was some part of the jargon doctors learned in medical school. A course on bed-side manner. –"We think we have Jules stable enough to have ONE," the doctor emphasized this last word, "visitor for a short period of time right now."

Both Sam and Greg stepped forward at this invitation. After a momentary pause to gather his thoughts and asses priorities, Greg stepped back again to allow Sam the courtesy offered by the medical staff. The reality of how much Greg was suffering through this entire ordeal struck Sam again. He was sure there was nothing, just like with himself, Greg would not give to see Jules and offer her some comfort in her time of need when in reality he just needed to see her to comfort himself of her continued existence on this plane. Sam wanted to offer him this little comfort, but not at the expense of missing a single moment with Jules himself. He nodded his head in thanks to Greg for his difficult concession and followed the doctor towards the ICU where his other half lay.

As they walked towards Jules' room, the doctor turned to Sam and said, "Now, I have to officially warn you that the sight of Jules might be shocking, although," McDonna raised an eyebrow at Sam, "I'm told that unofficially you already know that."

Sam nodded his head to at once acknowledge that he understood the doctor's warning about shock and the fact that he had ventured into the ICU without permission the previous night. Sam had visualized the image he'd seen last night and mentally prepared himself for what he would see when he entered Jules' room once more. He'd prepared himself to see Jules. Just Jules. His Jules. The person she was beyond wires, artificial respiration, and physical injuries.

The doctor guided him into her room and gave him one last warning. "I can only give you a few minutes, Officer Braddock." Sam was shocked that the good doctor knew his name. "A nurse will come get you and escort you out when that time has expired."

Sam nodded once more and turned towards his love. As the doctor left, Sam took in her appearance once again, but this time he didn't feel as deep of a sense of dread. He focused just as he had planned on the fact that this was still Jules; she was still with him on this physical plane.

He approached her and immediately grabbed her hand in a gentle embrace with both of his. He thought back to the previous morning, of how he had professed his love to her and how she had returned that gesture of love with a quick squeeze of his hand. "Hey, Jules," he sighed out with a slight smile. "Hey, sweetheart, I'm here now." He sat down on the graciously provided bedside chair and brought her hand up to his lips for a soft kiss. "I'm here, and I love you so much," he breathed out in a pleading whisper. He waited for her automatic hand squeeze as a return of his affections, but unlike the previous morning, it never came.

The realization of her inability to respond to him, tell him with one simple, non-verbal motion that she loved him too broke him a little more than any of the information the doctor had provided him with mere minutes before. A trail of tears began to cascade down his face as he wished she would just simply squeeze his hand, even the broken one, because the pain that action would cause would make him so happy, would overshadow and expunge the pain he felt throughout his entire being at her unresponsiveness.

"Oh, Jules," he sighed. "I'm here and I'll always be here for you. Just like you promised you'd always be there for me, remember?" He pleaded with her to share this memory with him, to live vicariously through its bitter sweet beauty even if it came from a time when they were not a couple.

It was from one of the worst days of his life. After building a strong connection with a former soldier, he had tried with all of his might and failed to talk the distraught young man down from what ultimately became suicide by cop in a condemned hockey arena. Anxious over his perceived uselessness as an SRU officer and fed-up with all of the death and destruction his life seemed to offer, he had cleaned out his locker and resigned himself to quit the SRU. Leaving his full bag in the locker room, he had gone to hide in the stairwell to give his nerves time to cool off so that he could safely drive home and start the next, hopefully non-violent, chapter of his life.

He should have known he couldn't hide from her. Not physically and certainly not emotionally.

He heard the creak of the door to the stairwell and looked over his shoulder at her approaching form. "I just want to be alone, Jules."

Jules scoffed at his words and sat next to him on the top stair. "Too bad, Braddock. The time for silent brooding and torturous contemplation is not upon us."

Sam sighed and remained silent. He knew she was here to change his mind about leaving the SRU. Thus, he expected her to speak first and break the ice. When five minutes passed and she hadn't, he turned towards her. "I can't do this anymore, Jules. I can't do this job anymore, can't deal with all this death." He shook his head and stared down at his hands. "My whole life is just death." He was thinking of his culpability in his little sister's premature death, killing dozens of people in the war, killing his own best friend in friendly fire, having to take the lives of subjects who went too far on the worst days of their lives, failing to save the poor young soldier today who reminded him so much of himself.

Jules forced him to stare at her right in the eye. "You had a rough call today, Sam. A rough day all around." He turned his head from her, and she forced it back with a light touch on his chin. "Sam, I know how you feel. We all have days like this. We all feel like we can't go on sometimes, like we have to quit." He stared deeply into her eyes just waiting for her to get to some far reaching point that she thought would change his already set mind.

When she began to open her mouth to spout out what Sam predicted would be another string of worthless platitudes, she did something she always managed to do, something that always made feelings for her stir within him: she surprised him. "We talk a lot about 'the job,' what 'the job' is. But it's not really that, Sam. What we do, who we are, this is 'the life.' Not everyone can do this job, Sam. Most people wouldn't last a week, a day, do'n what we do. But let me let you in on a little secrete, Sam. None of us can make it in this job, this life, without each other." She paused to let her words sink in. "And I will never let you down on that front, Sam. I will never let you go off and have to try to hack-it in this alone." She stared more deeply at him. "You're not done here at the SRU, Sam. You still have so much left to offer."

Sam stared back at her in utter disbelief. "Why do you care so much about this, Jules? Why do you care what happens to me?" For the life of him, he couldn't figure this question out. She'd dumped him, chosen 'the job' over him, and now she was trying to convince him that he should stick with this job she cared so much about even if he was demonstrating his incompetence, blemishing the career she loved?

Jules reached towards him and grabbed his hand to hold in her own. "Sam, I will ALWAYS care about you. I will ALWAYS be there for you," she promised him with conviction.

As she grasped his hand in comfort, an inexplicable feeling of emotion coursed through his veins at her words and gentle touch. And it was then that he knew it: he still loved her, and no matter how much he tried and might even succeed at getting over her, a part of him always would love her. And it wasn't just some lustful, passionate love that ignited young romance, it was a feeling of deep compassionate love that marked couples through and beyond their 50th wedding anniversaries. It was the kind of love that binded, lasted eternity. In this world and outside of it. A love that never dies.

After only a brief moment of this physical connection, Jules pulled away, because, Sam knew, she felt it too.

The smallest of smiles etched Sam's face, because this simple action and its automatic and unconscious consequences gave him the one thing he never thought he'd have on this, the darkest of his days: hope. Theirs was a connection that could not be broken, and somewhere deep down, they both knew it.

"Don't you remember promising that, Jules?" Sam asked his comatose love as he broke away from his reverie. "Please, Jules, please, you have to pull through and wake-up to keep that promise," he pleaded, her hand still motionless in his.

Jules had promised on the worst day of his life that she'd always be there for him. She'd promised that she would never let him have to go through 'the life' on his own. And now she was teetering on the edge of life and death. Who would be there to comfort him if she wasn't?"

8:17 am, Lane Residence

Ed sat at the family breakfast table bouncing his precious Izzy on his knee while he engaged in an animated conversation with his son Clark about the hockey team he was thinking about joining in the fall. As he leaned over to kiss his wife Sophie on the cheek as she poured him a refill of coffee, he thought about how surprised he was that his actions of the night before did not weigh heavily, or even at all, on his mind this morning. He was a man of action, and he had simply taken the needed steps to exact the justifiable vengeance necessary to keep the man who'd hurt Jules off the streets, both physically for the time being, and through fearful intimidation in the future.

"Goalie? When did this happen? I thought you were going out for Winger!" Ed questioned his son and savored this moment of perfect familial bliss. This was what he'd worked his whole life for, to have this not always perfect, but prefect enough, strong, loving family. He thought about how he'd always protect them, come what may.

"Nah, Dad. I'm fast, but I'm not big enough to be on the front line. I've been working on those hand-eye coordination drills you taught me to get sharper for try-outs."

Ed smiled at his son's enthusiasm and hard work. "And?"

Clark shot his father a cocky grin. "And I think I'm gonna smoke 'em at try-outs."

Before Ed could respond to his son's bravado, the resounding sounds of the front door bell filled the house. Sophie looked confused at the thought of who such an early morning caller would be, while Ed nodded his head slightly at the advent of the event he expected to come about. He was just glad he'd gotten to spend a happy and care-free breakfast with his family.

He rose from his chair, bent over to ruffle Clark's hair and kiss him on the crown of his head, lifted his daughter to kiss her on the cheek, and kissed Sophie quickly on the lips as he handed her their baby. "I love you guys so much," he told his confused family as he walked towards the door.

Opening the front door, Ed was not surprised to see a badge held out in front of him.

"Edward Lane, I have a warrant for your arrest."

8:32, St. Patrick's Hospital

As Greg waited for Sam's return from, and presumably report on, the ICU, he sat in melancholy silence with the two remaining members of Team One. The doctor's report hadn't been as good as he'd hoped, but he breathed a hefty metaphorical sigh of relief that Jules had made it through the night and that at least things hadn't gotten worse. He wanted more than anything to be by her side right now, to give her some sort of support that he intellectually knew she wouldn't be able to feel in her current condition. Mostly he wanted to just see her, to hold her hand, feel her pulse, to have visual and tangible proof that she was still with them, because he didn't know what the team as people, what he as a person, would do without her.

Greg looked up and took a moment to survey his surroundings. His eyes drifted and he caught sight of Raf. Greg suddenly wanted to kick himself. It had been 11 hours and he still hadn't taken the time to check on his team member who had had to make the fatal shot the day before. He got up from the unforgiving hard plastic chair he'd been occupying and walked to sit next to the young officer.

"Hey, Raf buddy, how ya do'n?" he asked with a smile. He glanced at Spike across the room for a second. The poor guy looked like he was trying to solve a logarithmic equation. Greg resolved to check on him next rather than get caught in another one of his torturous daydreams.

Raf sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, Boss. I just…" Raf couldn't seem to get the words he meant to say out.

Greg felt sorry for the young man. Having to kill a subject at the same moment that his team mate was put into critical condition constituted a pretty horrible day. "I know the past 24 hours haven't been easy for you, what with having to take the shot and learning that your team mate, our friend," Greg nearly choked out, "is in critical condition. You know I'm here to talk and help you through this, right?"

Raf shook his head again. "That's the thing, Sarge. I don't think I can get through this anymore." Greg furrowed his brow at Raf's words. "Not the need to kill. Not sitting around helplessly while your friend might…" Raf trailed off again, this time afraid to say the dreadful word.

Greg was afraid of where Raf's thoughts were leading him. "What are you saying, Raf?"

Raf looked up at Greg with his big, soulful eyes. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this." He sighed again as if he was ashamed of letting his Sergeant and all of his team down. "I think maybe I need some time to figure that out."

Greg nodded his head and patted Raf on the back. "Yeah," Greg understood where the young man was coming from, "maybe you should go ahead and take that time, buddy." He gave Raf a reassuring smile. "Listen. Why don't you go ahead back to HQ and fill out the paper work for a sabbatical? We'll call you if anything changes," Greg offered. He would work to protect the rest of the members of his team in any way he could.

Raf smiled sadly and rose to his feet. "Thanks, Boss. Tell Sam I'm here for him if he needs anything."

With that offer, Raf strode to the exit and the light of day. Greg sincerely hoped that Jules would be able to rise and do the same in a short time soon. His sense of pessimism made him pray that she would simply be able to open her eyes and be the person she was, _is_ (Greg chided himself), at any point in the near future.

Before he could rise and repeat his ritual of support for Spike, he caught a glimpse of Wordy striding towards him. He wanted to kick himself again. In all of his own selfish angst over Jules' condition, he'd forgotten to call Wordy.

"Wordy, hey, I'm sorry," Greg said rising to meet his former entry specialist. "I should have called you so that you wouldn't have to hear everything from the grapevine."

Wordy cut him off with his hand. "No, Boss. I knew. I would have been here sooner, but we have a problem."

Greg looked both indignant and flabbergasted at once. "Yeah, I'd say we have a problem. Jules is in a coma and just fighting to stay alive at this point! What problem could be worse than that?" Greg was shouting in pent-up rage, fear, and anxiety over the whole situation.

"Boss," Wordy said calmly, sadness and fear at Greg's words about Jules lining his face. "Ed's been arrested for assault and battery, and attempted murder."

**Author's Additional Note: **Oh dear. Things do not look good for our heroes… Special thanks to **MollyLyn** and **Tirsh** for reassuring me about Canadians calling hockey goalies, well, goalies. What with the Euro going on and all those keepers, I was freaking myself out about the possibility of getting Canadian terminology wrong.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this HUGEGANTUS (for me anyway) chapter.

Peace,

Eals, aka (for today) Kyle The Ligor


	8. Guess it was Just a Lie

**Author's Note:** First off, sorry about any confusion about updates yesterday. Being the pin-ball technology wizard that I am, I was trying to fix one of the previous chapter's titles and completely screwed something up and had to fix it…Yeah, the life of Eals. Second, I totally forgot to answer someone's question from a previous chapter; Yep, Katherine "Kat" Hill totally came from Katherine Hillard. Yeah, I'd totally do something like that. Anyho, thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and placing this story on alerts and favorites. So glad everyone is enjoying reading this story as much as I am (ya know, after I write it and type it and can actually sit back and enjoy it like, "WHAT THE CRAP JUST HAPPENED THERE!" as if someone else wrote it…).

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint. If I did, writing this would be extrinsically motivated and I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much…

Glasgow

Chapter 7: Guess it was Just a Lie

**Day 2**

9:16 am, City of Toronto Jail

As Ed sat on a corner bench in the City Jail away from all the rest of the 'captured criminals' awaiting arraignment before a judge, he lightly smirked to himself. Right now, at this moment, he thanked God for what he had often thought was a cursed receding hairline that forced him to shave his head bald in his only available attempt at having a 'stylish' hair-cut. He wondered if maybe the course his hair naturally took was just leading up to this moment, a moment when his shaved head would serve him as a source of protection. Cops, wrongly accused or dirty alike, were often targeted in settings like this for sever gang beatings. For once in his life he was glad he was balding prematurely, because with his current physical appearance, no one would ever mistake him for a cop. The beating he'd served was justified. Any beating exacted on him should his (now) secrete identity be revealed certainly would not be.

Ed Lane had never predicted he'd be in a place like this, not on the opposite of the bars that is. He'd never predicted that, not ever, until last night.

He knew someone would question the actions he had taken to swiftly and surely serve justice: another cop, a prosecutor, the sniveling little ass-hat of a creep who by maiming Jules had become the subject of his act of vengeance.

He just didn't expect any of what was presumably charged against him to stick. What he'd done had been justifiable; he'd found and brought to accountability a person who'd nearly (and for all he knew at this point, did kill) killed a cop and was a menace to society. The rest of the Metro Police Department had failed to act in the immediate aftermath of what had happened to Jules, so he'd taken it upon himself to do so alone.

The rest of the department, The Brotherhood, had failed to act, had failed Jules…But he hadn't, and he felt no remorse for doing so. And he would certainly not be making any apologies. To anyone.

Ed heard the abrasive clanging of metal upon metal and looked-up to see a pair of men enter the outer area of the jail cell space. It was Wordy and Greg, Wordy still wearing the clothes he'd had on the night before and Greg still clad in his uniform. Ed supposed that meant that Greg hadn't left the hospital even to change out of his uniform and store his weapon. A slight sense of guilt hit Ed for being the person who had pulled Greg away from Jules, but for nothing else.

A guard took their side arms and led them to the front bars of the cell Ed was in. The guard signaled for Ed to come up to the bars so that he could open the door and let him out. Apparently someone had offered him some professional courtesy, because the guard was now leading all three men to a consultation room; normally, this kind of meeting room was reserved for prisoners and their lawyers, not arrested cops and their co-workers. Ed would graciously take any preferential treatment he was offered because, after all, he was only exacting justice by what others would label 'rogue action.'

Once the door to the room shut behind them, Greg started right in on Ed. "Eddie, what the Hell! Jules is still in critical condition and you're going off brutalizing people!" Greg's accusatory finger was right in Ed's face, anger, fear, and disappointment coursing through every vein in his body.

Ed remained calm and stoic. "Any change?" he asked refereeing to Jules' condition.

Greg suddenly completely deflated, shook his head, and sat in a chair as if he had just exerted the last ounce of his strength and energy. "No," he shook his head in defeat. "And apparently that's the best we can hope for right now." He sighed and placed his head in his hands. "No change means she hasn't gotten any worse." He lifted his head and stared at both Ed and Wordy. "And right now 'worse' pretty much means dead."

Ed could see tears brimming in Greg's eyes. This only strengthened his resolved and conviction that what he had done to land himself in jail had been right. He took the only action that would make any positive difference for her right now. He'd taken the only action he'd seen available to him to show his love and concern for her. Ed expressed all of this, all of what was inside of him and the reasoning behind his actions, to Greg with his eyes and a meaningful look.

Greg read his stare, nodded his head, rose seemingly on emotional empty, and began to walk towards the door. "I'll get you a lawyer," he sighed out. "It's the best I can do for Jules at this point," he said over his shoulder as he walked out the door. Ed smiled slightly. Greg's parting words effectively conveyed to him that he understood, at least partially, Ed's behavior and was glad Jules had been afforded at least some justice.

With Greg gone, Ed now focused on his best friend. He wasn't sure what his feelings towards Wordy should be. He was glad Wordy had been loyal to him and Jules the previous night by getting him the fingerprint evidence, but he had to admit that he was a little peeved that Wordy had probably had a hand in him being arrested this morning.

"What'd you say, Wordy?" he asked calmly.

Irritation lined Wordy's face. "I told them you were there, Ed. Nothing more. They put two and two together all on their own." It was obvious to Ed that Wordy was annoyed with how far he had gone last night and with his current insinuation of disloyalty. "What the Hell, Ed?" Wordy repeated Greg's question. He wanted some sort of explanation for Ed's actions.

Ed remained calm, but he could feel his anger at the entire situation building. "She's a cop, Law Enforcement Professional of the Year, and the damn department hadn't lifted a finger to get the guy who did that to her, almost killed her!, off the streets. They should have had helicopters circling the city blocks for the bastard the moment Sarge and Spike found her!" Ed's fury was showing now. "But they did nothing, Wordy. Jules could die, and the department did nothing, acted like it was just another assault case to stick in the queue to be investigated when someone had the time." Ed was now breathing harder in his rage. "No one acted, Wordy. Not only did that scum-bag deserve to be off the streets, but Jules deserved swift and sure justice. They didn't act, so I did."

The look on Wordy's face was torn; he was mad, sorrowful, irritated, shocked, confused, but right now mostly just mad. "We're cops, Ed," he nearly shouted. "We keep the peace and more than abide by the law, we represent it. You can't just go off on some vigilante vengeance spree. You've got to work within the system to get justice."

Wordy's expression grew less angered and his tone grew softer. "Look, I love Jules as much as you do, and it kills me to think of how horribly that criminal hurt her, but I know beating a man to a bloody pulp isn't gonna help her now, Ed."

The anger and annoyance on Ed's own face was replaced by utter sadness. "What IS gonna help her now?" he asked softly with sincerity.

Wordy shook his head and looked down. "A miracle."

The two men were silent for a beat before Ed shook his head, a fraction of his fury returning. "That's no enough, Wordy."

Wordy shook his head sadly and signaled for the guard to come collect Ed to take back to his cell. "That's all we can hope for," he said as he left.

11:43 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

A tall and slender dark brown haired man with hazel eyes burst through the doors of the main entrance of St. Patrick's hospital with a frantic look on his face. He had been driving for over three hours, first daringly at high speeds from Montreal where he lived to Toronto, then with cautious aggravation through the city, on nothing but guilt and anxiety. As he walked up to the front information desk, he felt a slight sense of relief that at least he'd finally arrived at his destination.

"I need to find Julianna Callaghan. She's a police officer who was brought in here yesterday after she was injured on duty." It pained him to say these words, and his eyes begged the nurse behind the information desk to swiftly give him the information he needed.

The nurse looked back at him with a sympathetic, but apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, sir. I can only release patient information to family and emergency contacts."

The man became slightly exasperated, but fought to remain calm. "I'm Collin Callaghan. Jules is my sister," he revealed.

The nurse look slightly confused. She had been working at this hospital as an admittance nurse for several years and had seen Officer Callaghan admitted for various major and minor injuries related to her job. Never once did the nurse remember her family requesting information on her. She supposed she might not have been on duty at such times, but she was sure that would have been one heck of a coincidence. "Can I see some ID to verify that, sir?" The nurse was a bit wary of his claim based off previous precedent.

Collin exhaled in exasperation and fished through his wallet for his drivers license to show the woman. If the woman had actually known Jules well, all she would have had to do was take one look at him to know that he was Jules' brother. The woman looked surprised to see the proof on his ID and quickly began to search for information on Jules on her computer.

"Julianna Callaghan is in the ICU. That's on the first floor, down the West hall," she pointed behind him. "Go to the information desk in the waiting room there and someone should be able to give you some informed information. Visitation in the ICU is restricted, so you may not be able to see your sister for the time being."

Collin Callaghan nodded mutely and turned to walk towards the ICU.

As he walked, he thought back to his last meeting with his baby sister, the ramifications of which being the cause of his currently overwhelming guilt. It had taken place shortly after she had been shot a few years before when she was just beginning physical therapy. He now realized that his words and declarations of that day had all been fueled by his fear and concern for her. Being nine years her senior, Collin had practically raised Jules after their mother's death, and thus they had always had a special connection. He should have remembered that before making the stubborn and seemingly irreversible promise he'd made that day. Once he'd seen the news story about what had happened to Jules this morning, he'd have given back every word he said that day just to be able to spend the last few years with her in his life like he should have, The Family be damned.

As he'd walked up to her hospital room nearly four years ago, he'd heard the sound of someone struggling within. He turned into the room and, "Jules! What the— Shouldn't you wait for someone to help you with that?" Of course he'd found his strong willed, stubbornly independent little sister trying to lift herself into a wheelchair to be transported to physical therapy all by her just-shot-in-the-chest-less-than-two-weeks-ago self.

He caught his sister's familiar eye-roll as she struggled the rest of the way into the chair. She didn't even dignify his question with a verbal response. He never expected her to.

"Hey, Collin. What's up?" she grunted out. Her voice and facial features were still strained from the effects of her effort.

"Just finished that project at work and got here as quickly as I could," Collin answered her. "I wish I was here sooner, but—"

Jules cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I'm perfectly okay, Col. But it's good to see you now."

He knew her first sentence was a lie. He knew she'd almost died just a short time ago and was still in a great deal of pain. He also knew that when he'd called to check-up on her while he was packing to come see her, but she'd told him she was fine and not to bother coming to see her until his work project was done, he'd better listen to her. He knew his little sister just didn't want her strong, tall big brother to see her when she was weak and broken. He knew his little sister couldn't abide being seen as anything less than superhuman, especially not by anyone in her family.

So he'd heeded her request and stayed away for the almost two weeks it took him to finish the new War of 1812 exhibit he'd been helping to create as a Canadian History Professor with expertise in French Canadian history at McGill University. He forced himself to continue to see the project through to completion, but it never distracted him form the anxiety and worry he was feeling towards his baby sister.

And as he stared into her face and saw the pain that she was still in even though she wore a near professional mask of strength, anxiety and worry took over his senses again. He couldn't take this. Couldn't take seeing her hurt and in an agony of pain. He especially couldn't take the show she was putting on to hide that pain. Right then in that moment, staring into and seeing through the emotion on her face, he completely understood the stance the rest of the Callaghan clan had taken on her profession and life choices.

Jules narrowed her eyes at the symphony of emotion playing across her brother's face at these thoughts. "Collin?" The fact that he knew she was reading his face and profiling him only added anger to his concern.

He shook his head and walked closer to her. "Why are you doing this, Jules? You know you're killing Dad with this," he accused, jumping right in.

The mask of confidence and strength she'd been wearing immediately left her face and was replaced by one of anger. He knew his simple words had triggered this transformation; this wasn't the first time this argument had come up for her.

Jules sat up straighter as if she was poising herself to go on the offensive-defensive. "How could you ask me that, Collin," her voice sounded cold, "and put Dad on me like that! This is my job, MY LIFE! It's what I do! And I'm one of the best, the only woman ever in the SRU."

"And it's killing you!" Collin shot back quickly. "Today you're shot, what's gonna happen tomorrow, eh? And do you even think about what this is doing to you mentally? All the stress, all the trauma. And with Mom—"

"Don't even go there, Col," Jules cut him off with cold steel in her voice as she slowly shook her head at his brazen accusations and challenging tone. "Don't you dare bring Mom into this. I'm not her." He could practically see fury smoldering underneath the surface of Jules' cold, exacting tone.

Collin scoffed and smirked darkly. "Oh, you aren't, eh?" He raised mocking eyebrows at her. "You're break'n-up the family just as much as she did." His tone had turned from mocking to one of pure rage. "We don't talk to each other much anymore for fear that the topic of little Jules 'the cop' will come up. I KNOW I'm the only one who still talks to you. For God's sake, Jules, Pat and Mick's kids don't even know they have an Aunt! Just—"

"Collin, stop." Collin could see the infuriation Jules was feeling throughout this whole conversation was beginning to cause her more pain. He was loath to be the cause of that, but he knew he couldn't back down from his argument now. "Don't go there," she warned through gritted teeth, which he knew were caused by pain and fury. "That's not my fault. As far as I see it, you guys left me." The admission of how she felt towards her family, which she had just grouped him in as well, was like a knife to his heart. "These guys on my team, they're more family to me than you all have been for 16 years! I'd'a had Nobody without them."

"You had me, Julianna!" Collin shouted back at her accusations in pure, unbridled vexation. He couldn't believe she'd thought so little of him that she thought he'd left her at any single point in the last 16 years. But in the beat of silence that filled the room after his shouted declaration, he thought about how much the predictable pain and danger of her chosen life affected him. How much it pained him to watch her struggle in various ways throughout this life. "But, I don't think I can do this anymore," he admitted softly.

Sorrow, confusion, and agony dueled for dominance on Jules' face as she asked, "What's that supposed to mean?" in an even softer tone than the one he'd just used.

Collin began to shake his head in sad weariness. "I can't be the conduit between you and the family anymore. I can't watch you kill yourself with this job."

The mix of sorrow, confusion, and pain on Jules' face was immediately replaced with the fury of moments ago. "What The—" she nearly spat out in confused irritation. "I was there for you! I stood up for You when you came-out! I was the only one who did!" The truth of her words and the obvious betrayal she felt behind them twisted the metaphorical knife in his chest, but he still held firm to his own stance in this argument. "Dad's second generation from Ireland, does a Rosary every morning before breakfast. You think it was easy to stand-up to him?"

"No—"

"But I did!" Jules cut him off before he could really say anything. "I did, because I love you and who you are no matter what. This job is who I am. Why can't you stand-up for me and who I am like I did for you?"

The full brunt of Collin's indignation returned. "Because my life isn't killing me!" he fumed back at her in response. "Is what you do really worth it?"

Jules' own outrage was replaced by stunned shock at his words, and she let silence fill the air for a few beats before responding. She began to shake her head slowly. "I can't believe you'd ask me that. If saving lives, keeping peace, is worth it," she finally said softly.

Collin sighed quietly as he shook his head up at the ceiling. "'Hero' is just another name for people who get killed because of other people's problems, Jules. I don't want that for you," he stared at her with wide, truthful eyes."

Jules smirked darkly at him and shook her head. "Well, that's too bad, Collin, because 'Hero' is also another name for 'Constable,' and I'm not giving that up."

All of the fear, fury, irritation, and worry that had played across Collin's face throughout this conversation was replaced by utter misery and resignation. "Then that's it. I won't watch you die. I'm done with you, Jules," Collin said in sorrow as he took one last look at his little sister's broken, yet still strong willed form and turned to walk out of her life.

He was so tied up in the ache and anguish of his last declaration, he almost ran into a tall blond man who was walking in the direction of Jules' room in the hallway. He was sure it wasn't safe for him to drive home to Montreal while he was still captivated in such a strong, distressful abstraction, but he did anyway because there was nothing left for him to do in Toronto. He sealed the deal of their separation with his parting words, and there was nothing more he could do on the matter.

Now as he turned the corner to the ICU waiting room, he wished to God he could take back everything he'd said, take back the whole damn conversation, rewind it to the moment before he entered her hospital room and have remained the firm, loving, supportive big brother he'd been for those previous 16 years in question and before. He wished the guilt and shame that afflicted him the moment he'd heard that Jules had been severely injured on the national news never would have had to arise within him. Mostly he prayed that when he saw his little sister again she'd forgive him for his years of absence and let him back into her life. There was so much he missed about her, so much in his own life he'd dreamed of being able to share with her.

As he walked through the ICU waiting room, he saw a couple of guys dressed in SRU uniforms. He figured he'd stop and speak to them before asking anything at the information desk. The worried looks on their faces struck his heart and filled him with dread about the condition his little sister was actually in. Seeing their faces, he just now prayed to God that his baby sister was still alive.

XXXXX

Sam was still reeling from his visit with Jules earlier this morning. Intellectually he knew that her being in a coma meant that she wouldn't be able to respond to him, but having the tangible proof of her hand lying motionless in his shattered his world just a little bit more. And the moment the nurse had come in all too soon to tell him that his visit had to end had only cracked him just a little bit more. With any more cracks or fissures, he wondered if the janitor would soon have to be sweeping up bits and pieces of him off the hospital floor.

He now knew he was simply living for the tiny moments he would get to spend with her, when he would get to hold her hand and gently stroke her face, and he knew he would continue to do so until she woke up.

And there was no doubt in his mind that she WOULD wake-up. There was no other outcome he could bring himself to imagine happening.

"Excuse me, Officers?"

Sam looked up to see a tall, dark haired man staring down at him. A look of slight familiarity lit his eyes. "Yes?"

"I saw your uniforms and figured…" The man sighed. "I'm Collin Callaghan, Jules' brother."

_Jules' brother?_ Sam thought. It struck him for a moment that he knew Jules did in fact have a brother, four of them actually. One night a year ago, just after they'd gotten back together, Jules had let her guard down while she laid in Sam's arms in a lawn chair as they drank beer and looked up at the stars in the mid-summer night's sky.

She chuckled at a memory of a part of what ultimately turned out to be a false alarm call they'd been on that day. Sam held her closer and kissed her temple at the shear cuteness and giddiness of her reaction to the memory. "The look on that kid's face when you yelled at him to drop the potato cannon with your MP5 pointed at him reminded me so much of my brother after he got caught tipping a cow over on our neighbor's farm one summer." She punctuated her statement with a bellow of a laugh at the memory from long-ago.

Sam smiled from behind her and planted another kiss on her temple. She was letting him in to a vision of her past and family. The last time she'd revealed anything about her family to him was when she'd told him about her Dad being a cop right before she'd been shot a couple of years ago.

"Which brother was that?" he asked as he began to rub up and down her left arm, which held his left hand over her stomach, with his right hand.

She snorted and laughed again. "That was Mick, that goof ball." She chuckled some more. "One of my earliest memories," she sighed.

So far her guard had not gone back up, so he lightly pressed on. "What was the order again?" he asked as if she had told him at some point in the past all about her brothers.

Jules snuggled more tightly into his embrace after taking a sip from her beer. She snorted before beginning. "Michael's the eldest, 10 years older than me, then Collin who's nine years older." Her hair lightly rubbed against his cheek as she shook her head. "Of course Dad insisted that we call Michael 'Mick.'"

She laughed some more and turned her head to raise an eyebrow at Sam. Realization struck him, "Michael Collins?"

Jules burst out laughing as Sam joined her. "Bingo, mon ami," she continued to chuckle. "And if you can't figure out what my Irish Catholic father named my third brother, you don't deserve to be in the SRU."

"Hmm," Sam was so glad she was having fun with this. "Patrick, I'm guessing."

Jules snorted again. "Yes, we are that predictable." She laughed again to punctuate this assessment of her family. "Pat's four years older. Then," she sighed, "there's little Seamus who's two years older than me." She shook her head in what Sam could tell was mock sympathy. "Poor Seamus really did get the short end of the stick on that one…"

So happy for the information Jules was allowing him to become privy to, Sam moved her hair to the side and began to lay a line of kisses down her neck. "I'm surprised you weren't named Colleen or Kathleen," he said between kisses.

He had to stop for a second while Jules started to convulse with the loudest laugh she'd had so far. "God, Sam," she said while she tried to breathe between guffaws, "those are my middle and Confirmation names!"

Sam was overjoyed that she was being so open with this discussion of such seemingly trivial information, but information that she had always remained guarded about for some yet to be revealed reason that he figured he'd only ever be able to surmise, but never be told directly. With increasing confidence, he pressed on a little further to learn more. "Wow, your Dad's quite the Irish Nationalist."

Jules laughed. "Phhffft, tell me about it. My Dad once tried to convince the Knights of Columbus to stage an anti-Orangemen protest parade on the 12th of July."

Not being raised in an Irish Catholic family, the significance of this date and the need for protest was lost on him, but he still prompted her to go on. "Your Dad's in the Knights of Columbus?"

Jules scoffed as she continued to grasp his hand and stare up at the night's sky, while in reality all she was really seeing were memories. "I'll say. He's one of those 4th degree ones with a sword and plumes. When I was little, I used to wonder why Daddy would dress-up like one of the Three Musketeers even when it wasn't Halloween."

Sam began to kiss her neck again. "Now that's something I'd like to see," he said smoothly hinting that he wished to meet her family.

"Yeah," Jules replied evasively as she turned around in his arms and began to kiss him zealously on the lips, effectively distracting him from any further inquiries about her family. And as she suddenly got up and held her hand out to him to do the same so that they could retire inside for more athletic activities than counting the stars, Sam knew she had put the kibosh on any more inquiries about her past. He accepted this, but was so thankful that she'd let him so far into her past and what he now knew for certain had to be her estranged family.

In the present, Sam looked up at the man who'd identified himself as the Collin Callaghan Jules had mentioned on that night. "You're a lot taller than her," he commented in dazed wonder. "I always imagined the Callaghans as a clan of Leprechauns."

Collin smirked. "Yeah, Jules has always been the runt, although," he paused to think, "Seamus really did get the short end of the stick on that one too."

Sam smiled at the memory of Jules using pretty much that exact same phrase to describe the youngest brother's poor luck.

The brief sense of mirth quickly left Collin's face. "Please, Officer," Sam now realized he hadn't offered his own name or even acknowledged the existence of Spike, "Please tell me how my baby sister is."

**Additional Author's Note:** Longest chapter I've ever written, my friends. So much happened, I don't even remember now…I think Wordy was there. JK. So, the character of Collin is meant to show the extent of how unaccepting her father (and subsequently her clannish family) is of her chosen profession (which I think she pretty much alludes to in Between Heartbeats). Also, Jules' extreme reaction and facial expressions when she was talking to the 'Family Affirmation' guy in The War Within seemed as if she's was taking his homophobic attitude personally. Man, I love Jules in that episode. She had a face like, "what the EFF is wrong with you!" while she's talking to that guy. And the baseball bat line is EPIC! "Take it easy, Jules," Translation: "don't beat the crap out of that guy, Jules." "What, I don't get a baseball bat?" And then she's shouting "LET'S GO!" at him in the background at the end after she had to restrain herself from smacking him. I find the whole thing hilarious.

Anyway, **Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this big old chapter. A lot happened and much was foreshadowed, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Later gators,

Eals


	9. Daydream

**Author's Note: **Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, I'm sorry it took so long for me to get this chapter out. No real excuse; I was just watching re-runs of Lois and Clark in my free time instead of writing. Far warning, the Tour de France is now going on so I can't promise much about a regular schedule for updates. I just hope that you'll all remain patient with me and my cycling loving heart. Thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and placing this story on favorites and alerts. You all truly are awesome peeps. Oh, and the person who gave me the best definition of the Glasgow Coma Scale I've ever seen surely gets both a cookie and "I'm'a get me some" cupcake. Happy (belated) 4th of July to all my American brethren out there! God Bless America : )

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint or Armani.

Glasgow

Chapter 8: Daydream

**Day 2**

12:35 pm, City of Toronto Jail

"Edward Lane," a guard called, waking Ed from a light sleep, the first he'd taken in over 30 hours. The unfortunately now familiar abrasive discord of metal door slamming against metal bar cell wall fully aroused him from his slumber. "Your lawyer is here for your arraignment."

Ed nodded, rose, and thought he caught the glimpse of a smile from the guard as he passed through the demarcation between imprisonment and freedom. He guessed he had some allies within the brotherhood of those who live to protect and serve. He gave a short, curt, yet firm and friendly, nod in return to the guard's signal of well wishes.

As Ed was buzzed through the door of the jail and back into the main area of the police building, he caught sight of a young blond man dressed impeccably in a fine Armani suit.

"Edward Lane," the young man started with his hand held out for a hand-shake of greeting.

"ED Lane," Ed cut him off. "Officer Ed Lane of the Strategic Response Unit."

The young man smiled and smirked slightly at Ed's display of rank and continued to reach for his hand. "Ted Sands," he said as he shook Ed's hand. "The Americans would say 'Esquire,' but let's just go with 'I'm your lawyer.'"

Ed stared skeptically back at the young man's declaration. He was having trouble believing that this baby faced young'un was anywhere close to the appropriate age for a person with a juris doctorate.

Ted just smiled. "I'm friends with Greg. That's why he sent me to help you out."

Ed still looked skeptical and even raised an eyebrow.

Ted just grinned and shrugged as if he was quite used to this kind of reception. "I know, I'm young, but I'm where I am today because of Greg Parker." He turned his head lightly and looked towards the ceiling before continuing. "I got caught up in some gang stuff when I was 16; felt like I was at the end of my rope after a while and decided to take drastic measures." He shook his head at the thought of his past mind-set and stared back at Ed. "Greg was there to talk me down when things went wrong and I was gonna take my own life." He paused and stared at Ed straight in the eye with a no non-sense expression. "I owe Greg Parker everything." His face turned bright again as if a switch had been flipped and he was contemplating lolly-pops and rainbows rather than guns and gang violence.

Ed smiled as he became lost in his own memory. "Jules has a story like that. A girl named Tasha Redford." He continued to smile as he looked back up at Ted. "Last Jules told us she was in university with a track scholarship."

Ted smiled softly at Ed's now sad grin. "And Jules is the reason we're here today, isn't she?"

Ed did a double take with his eyes before smirking. "You sound like someone in the SRU."

Ted returned his smirk as he led Ed towards their court date. "There's certainly more than one thing I've gained from being friends with Greg Parker."

Another thought quickly came to Ed's mind. "Wait, what are your rates? How much am I supposed to pay you? I've got two kids, on ready for university—"

Ted cut him off with a wave of his hand. "You're covered, 'Officer Ed Lane.' Any friend of Greg's is a friend of mine."

Ed looked slightly incredulous. "Pro Bono? I'm not a charity ca—"

Ted cut him off once more. "But I once was. You may have missed this in all the finer points of my story," he smirked sarcastically," but I owe my life to the SRU. The least I can do is defend one of its decorated members."

Ed smiled slightly and nodded, content to accept this course of payment.

A short time later, Ted and Ed sat on deck for the next arraignment. Since the moment they had entered the court room, Ted had been tense. Ed found this state of his attorney unsettling.

"Look, Jr., if this is too much for you, I can always get a public defender," Ed said in a gruff, whispered voice. He had no idea what Greg thought he was doing bringing a kid still wet behind the ears in to be his soul arbiter of freedom.

Ted scoffed. "It's not that, grandpa," he smiled to signify his jest, "It's the Judge." He finished this statement cryptically as if he was loath to continue.

Ed felt he had no time to play games, especially with his future now hanging in the balance as precariously as Jules', the person whose maiming had led him to the actions he had taken. He raised his eyebrows and gave his young lawyer a frustrated teacher's look. "Care to elaborate?"

Ted sighed and turned to his client. "The judge has a reputation," he revealed evasively.

Before Ed could enquire anymore, his case was called.

"Next case, The People versus Edward Lane, one count of assault in the first degree, one count attempted murder in the first degree."

Ted guided his client to stand before the judge. "Your Honor, I move to have the charge of attempted murder struck from this case. My client in no shape, manner, or form had any intention of murdering the person in question."

"Counselor," Judge Felix MacDuff sounded bored, "save it for the trial. This is no place for arguing intent. How does the defendant plead?" he asked in a deceptively droll manner.

Ted immediately moved beyond the judge's strike against his motion and became all business and self-assured. "Not guilty," he responded with conviction as he nodded his head.

MacDuff diverted his attention to Prosecutor Sharon Taylor in a practiced and well-rehearsed movement of commonality. "Bail?"

Sharon glanced darkly at Ed before responding. "The defendant is a member of the police Strategic Response Unit and has access to many weapons and guns as well as contacts within the fraternal brotherhood of police, which leads him to be a potential flight risk and danger to society. The People move for remand."

Ed was flabbergasted by the prosecutor's harsh recriminations and suspicions of his potential behavior. He'd never imagined an agent of the same city he served could have such a dark opinion of a member of its police force. Ted, however, seemed less than surprised to hear his counterpart's argument. "Your Honor, my client is a decorated police officer and pillar of the community. He also has strong ties to his family and the members of his police team, one of which is currently fighting for her life in the hospital as we speak, and he thus has no intention of fleeing the area. Such action would be uncouth and against all he stands for as a proven hero of this city."

The judge frowned back at the young lawyer and began to raise his gavel. "Save the poetry and theatrics for prime time drama writers, Councilor. The prosecutor's arguments are valid; bail is denied."

As the judge began his motion to strike the gavel, Ted began to argue, "But, Your Honor—"

Felix MacDuff ignored Ted's pleadings, and the gavel slammed and resonated throughout the courtroom, silencing the young lawyer's words. "Next!" he declared as he sealed the fate of Ed's current existence.

As a bailiff approached Ed to take him back to the city jail, Ted patted his client's shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, Ed. We'll get that ruling over-turned. You'll be back with your family before you know it."

Ed was less than convinced by his lawyer's words, especially in light of the less than comforting fake smile plastered on his face. He could only imagine how difficult his attorney anticipated that act to be. "Tell my wife I love her," he said simply, his eyes shining with the grief of separation from his family in the near future as the bailiff dragged him out to return to an imprisonment only made worse by the estrangement in that it would engender.

5:18 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

As Spike continued to sit in the waiting room, now waiting to hear Sam and Collin's report on the visit the doctor was allowing them to now have with Jules, he thought back to the nascent memory of Sam stumbling through an attempt to tell Jules' brother about her dire condition. Fear, confusion, consternation, anger, and just the hint of what Spike thought might be guilt flitted across Collin's face during the entire discussion. Spike wondered if perhaps he was becoming privy to the harsh reality of the world, of existence, of how one can't really exist if one can't think. He wondered how long it took for Collin to come to the determination that what he thought was his existence was not really real either; Spike had already deduced that the only person truly conscious and aware, in existence, was he himself (a possibility that was decreasing in likelihood with every second ticking by on the hospital wall clock), or Jules now in her, what everyone falsely espoused to be, unconscious, unaware state of faltering existence. Sure, yes of course, this realization of how the world actually functioned would be enough to place all of those emotions on anyone's face, let alone the brother of the only real person really in existence. He was thinking about thinking, metacognition. But really, what was commonly known as metacognition really in reality could not be 'meta' cognition, because there was no meta involved in the only truly functioning and real person thinking about another person's thoughts, creating them, bringing them to fruition. Or, could this be meta? Could thinking about another 'person's' (for lack of a better word right now) thoughts be construed as metacognition? It was still thinking about thinking, but it was also thinking a notion into existence in the mind of another's falsely assumed to be consciously aware reality…

Spike's head was starting to hurt with all of these thoughts that Jules in her coma was placing in the receptacle of his skull. She needed to wake-up soon to give him a coherent and definitive answer to the questions of reality he was pondering in the wake of what this brutal world had done to her physical, tangible, assumed existence.

11:59:59, ?

_ …it was like on those lazy days in early summer after we had been cleared by the chief to stay on the team and keep our relationship, when we could lay out in the open on a soft summer's day as the sun bathed us in its warm light rather than having to wait until the stars lit the sky to lounge in each other's arms outside; it was like sweet intoxication as Sam held me, holds me, the warm gentle breeze blowing through my hair, the sun bleaching his blond hair even lighter; there was, there is, no thought, no pain, no want, no need, nothing; we gaze up at the sky and allow nature and time to inter-mix, become one, erase all of the normal sensations around us so that all there is is him and me and the sky and the clouds and the warm summer air…_

_ this is a memory, this is my reality; this is where i want to exist now, where i do exist now; i'm in Sam's embrace; he washes the darkness away, lights the sky like the Son and the sun at the same time; he is everything even as i seem to be nothing now…_

_ all too soon the darkness is coming back to claim me; i'm not too sure if this is a memory of comfort and bliss or some hallucination of my muddled and arguably non-existent mind; if i'm not real, don't really exist, does that memory, that moment in time exist; does anything exist; does the world exist…_

_ i'm losing the world at the same moment as i'm losing Sam; his gentle embrace is getting washed away as if by some flash thunderstorm on the soft summer day; coming out of nowhere; obliterating all that is me, all that seems real; i'm lost again, don't know where i am; yes, the essence of being lost; nothing feels right because i've lost Sam again..._

_ whatever this is, wherever this is, isn't right; if i can't be with Sam on a soft summer's day again, can't even lay with him in the darkness of night, in the darkness of secrecy as we sit in a comfortable silence that just seems right, just seems real, the only thing that's really real even beyond the stars in the sky that we number in the silence, then nothing should exist for me; nothing could exist for me…_

_ i'm fading out again and all i can think is how much maybe this is where I should stay; maybe i should just fade out permanently this time; maybe i should just end, move on; whatever this existence is where memories and feelings of Sam can only be fleeting and taunting sensations just isn't right; i'd rather not be real anymore than not have Sam; i think he still exists out there somewhere beyond this fabricated world that i somehow see and don't see at once; as long as he's still out in the world, all is right; as long as he's still out in the world, if i can believe that, then maybe i have a reason to stay; even as i fade out i promise to keep fighting; for Sam; for the promise of a better place than this phony existence i'm now wallowing through…_

**Additional Author's Note:** Oh Jules and her coma thinking…mostly about Sam…Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. **Please leave a review** and let me know what you think, especially about Jules' coma thinking. Also, yep, "Ted Sands" is a tribute to the wonderful Ted Stokes from Twitter : )

Peace, love, and the good old US of A,

Eals


	10. Never Intending to Stay

**Author's Note: **Hey, all! Thanks, as always, to everyone who read, reviewed, and added to favorite's and "follows" (whatever that is….) the last chapter and this story as a whole. It was pointed out by **PSU93Girl** that the legal stuff in last chapter is iffy. Yeah, I meant to leave a note about that, so here goes: I get all I know about legal stuff from Law and Order and murder shows and junk. A JD I am not…Also, thanks to **Tirsh** and **CTI_Jenn** for assuring me that Tim Horton's nick-name is Timmy's, and not Timmie's, and to **Shiggity** for offering to ask them when she went there. Haha, you guys are seriously sweet, in so many ways : )

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint or Tim Horton's, but hey, check it dude, I DO have rights to _Do Different Styles of Self-monitoring Yield Different Outcomes in Ego Depletion and Anxiety? _Check it. I got copyrighted : )

Glasgow

Chapter 9: Never Intending to Stay

**Day 3**

6:03 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

Sam and Collin sat in Jules' now personally and involuntarily vacated hospital room as they waited for her doctor to return with her and the results of the latest brain scans and test they had performed on her. Before leaving, Dr. McDonna, the doctor Sam sub-consciously labeled as the 'good doctor' as if the two main doctors in the ICU were two sides of a coin of good and evil, night and day, positivity and negativity, had expressed to him and Collin that there were reasons to be hopeful; apparently people with similar injuries had begun to show improvement around this period of time post incident.

Sam still hadn't talked to Collin much since relating the extent of Jules condition to him. It was as if he felt that he had only a limited number of cognitive resources to expend on the focus of others besides Jules, because all of his mental and now sleep-deprived physical energy was concentrated on his thoughts of Jules, hope for Jules, prayers for Jules that soon turned to pleading for Jules. Sam's silence seemed to be acceptable for Collin. The man Sam felt familiar with for his resemblance to Jules and for some other inexplicable reason of familiarity seemed content to exist in his own space and contemplation for the time being.

A relatively short time later, Dr. McDonna and a couple of ICU interns and nurses returned with Jules. Sam thought how this was odd. The cast of thousands never transported and trailed his fallen love before. Catching a glimpse of a smile on McDonna's face, Sam perked up and took this state of affairs as a good sign.

"Any—" Sam began, but was interrupted by McDonna's raised hand.

The doctor's smile now became fully evident. "First of all, the latest scans showed that the swelling in Jules' brain has begun to recede significantly." Sam's sense of relief and hope rose exorbitantly at the doctor's words and he began to smile himself. "And," the doctor's smile widened, "I wanted to show you something that signifies her rise on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Monroe," McDonna spoke to a female interns, "would you like to do the honors?"

The intern nodded her head and grinned widely. "With pleasure, sir." She looked at Sam and Collin before doing whatever it was that was supposed to impress them. "Just keep your eye on Officer Callaghan's face," she said as she clapped and stomped her foot loudly.

At first Sam was confused and startled by this action, but that shock was soon over-shadowed by the shock of a reaction evident on Jules' face. Sam's breath caught as he saw Jules' uncovered left eye open and remain open. There was no emotion in the world that could explain his feelings at seeing the beautiful brown eye he hadn't seen for what felt like ages open and stare towards him. "Jules," he called softly as he approached her to hold her hand. He thought that maybe he could engage in conversation with her, but all too soon Jules' eye shut once more. "No, sweetheart, not yet," he pleaded in dismay.

The shattering quickness of Jules' return to a completely comatose state broke Sam and he bowed his head in defeat again. Dr. McDonna clearly read Sam's negative reaction to this display and quickly jumped in to explain the phenomena. "No, Officer Braddock, this is really a good sign," he assured. Sam brought his head up at these words, confusion lining his face. "That was an involuntary reaction and she may have been conscious for a few seconds, but wasn't aware." This answer was not making Sam feel better so far. "It may not seem like much," McDonna continued in response to the look on Sam's face, "but this shows increased neurological activity and signifies that Jules' brain is starting to heal. It's a good sign for her overall recovery, especially given that it's only been three days since the injury."

The implications of this explanation began to dawn on Sam and he smiled as he looked over to see Jules' brother having almost a mirrored reaction. "So, what does this mean for her overall recovery?" he asked with hope for the first time in what felt like years.

"Well, it's still quite early to tell for sure," the doctor warned, "but I think this shows that she is healing and that she may regain consciousness sometime in the near future." McDonna frowned for a moment after the relation of these facts. "There's still the question of damage and recovery after that happens, but" he smiled again, "let's take this victory and not get ahead of ourselves."

Sam nodded, content to take this victory, as the doctor had called it, however small it was. If Jules had fought to get this far, there was no doubt in his mind that she would continue to fight her way to consciousness and awareness and whatever battles there would be to recovery after that.

Sam still felt that the brief moment he'd gotten of seeing Jules' constantly concealed eye was not enough to satisfy his craving. He needed another fix. "Do you think," he began to ask before taking a moment to stare back in Jules' face, a part of him hoping that the sound of his voice would jostle her to full awareness. "Could I try what Dr. Monroe just did?"

Dr. McDonna smirked softly at Sam's eagerness. "Normally we don't like to push these things too much, but I think you could try, just to prove definitively that there's been a change in her status," the doctor offered kindly.

Sam almost reluctantly broke contact with Jules' hand as he straightened up to prepare himself for action. He brought his hands apart slowly, almost as if he was willing them to prepare to perform some magical feat, then slammed them together while he simultaneously shouted, "Jules!"

The effect of his hands' kinetic energy and his voice were instantaneous. Jules' uncovered by bandages eye opened once more and Sam dove back down to her side to grab her hand again. He stared deeply into her hazelnut orb of sight and imagined her irately asking him what the Hell he needed to shout to wake her up for. She'd probably warn him that he might want to raise his voice a little, because the people in New York didn't hear him and he knew how much they enjoyed his dulcet Canadian tones. 'The voice of an angel, or at least a drunk hockey fan,' she'd joke as she rose to gently jab him in the ribs in jest.

Of course none of this happened and her eye closed once more just a few short seconds later, but the smile Sam's fertile imagination created still remained on his face. Yes, he could do nothing but believe that Jules would wake-up soon and be able to talk to him. At the thought of his near hallucination he realized how much he really did miss her sardonic wit and commentary. He promised himself to stay positive, because it wouldn't be long before he would hear that commentary in reality once more.

The doctor and interns smiled at Sam's reaction. "A nurse will be back a little later to change her dressings and IV. We'll let you two have some time with her for the time being." Sam and Collin nodded and took their respective seats on either side of Jules' bed as the proverbial cast of thousands left the room.

Sam couldn't help the grin on his face that the good news of progress in Jules' condition had engendered. As he lightly stroked her un-bandaged face and continued to hold her hand, he looked over at her brother sitting on the opposite side of her bed. Collin stared back at him and smiled, the look of fear and something more, guilt perhaps, that had been clouding his visage since their initial meeting temporarily being replaced by slight joy. "You love her, don't you?"

With this question Sam was assured that Collin's change of expressive mood was created by happiness for his little sister and the sure news that she had someone who loved her. Sam's smile widened as he brought Jules' hand up to his mouth to lightly kiss. "Yeah." He snorted softly as he stared back into Jules' face. "I never guessed I could ever feel this way about anyone until I met Jules." He stroked the left side of her face from beside the eye he'd seen open for a few glorious seconds to her jaw. "She just drew me in and held me like no one else ever could."

"Yeah," Collin patted his sister's shoulder with a gentle touch. "Little Jules is special like that. And I'm guessing she loves you in return as much as you seem to love her." He looked up from his sister's face to smile and nod at Sam. "I'm so glad she has that."

Sam nodded back, but shook his head. "Really, I'm the lucky one." At this thought he couldn't help but lean in and kiss her cheek. Some part of him, he knew, wished every time he did so that his kiss would awaken her completely like in a fairytale. And every time this action resulted in no reciprocated action on her part, he regretted that fairytales weren't real. Beauties could sleep, but he was not the prince that could awaken them.

Sam tore he's eyes off of his personal sleeping beauty to look at Collin, smirking at the thought of Jules kicking his ass if he ever verbally referred to her as such. He contemplated calling her that out loud right now just to see if it would piss her off so much she'd wake-up to smack him. "What about you; you have a girl?"

Collin snorted darkly, a slight look of regret or guilt returning to his face. "Wow, she really DOESN'T talk much about us, does she?" Sam looked confused by this comment and it's appropriateness as a response to his question, so Collin took the initiative to spell things out directly for Sam. "I don't bat for your team."

Realization dawned on Sam's face. "Oh, hmmph," he scoffed as he smiled and gently stroked Jules' face again.

Collin farrowed his brow, sure there was more to that response than Sam was letting on. "What?" he looked askance.

Sam somewhat reluctantly pulled his eyes from Jules again, but retained his smile. "Oh, it's nothing, just," he shook his head as his grin widened and he brought Jules' hand back to his mouth to kiss again. "That just explains her reaction a few months back on a call. We were dealing with a teenager struggling with being gay who turned suicidal. He'd tried to 'get help,'" Sam used his free hand to gesture one half of air quotes as he raised an eyebrow in disbelief, "to 'overcome' homosexuality. Jules had to interview the bigoted founder of the program he'd gone to." Sam smiled again as he glanced at Jules once more. "I don't think I've ever seen her that disgusted with anyone or anything, not even me leaving the toilet seat up. Sarge was afraid she was going to beat the guy to a bloody pulp. She told me afterwards when she was still fuming that no one had any idea how much she struggled to restrain herself from smacking the guy." He chuckled softly. "I don't think I've ever described someone that pissed-off as adorable, but that's what she was. It makes sense that she'd take a misguided, homophobic man's attitude personally, especially when he was saying such hurtful things within her hearing."

Collin nodded his head and smiled at his little sister. "She always did stand up for me. Sixteen, five-foot nothing, and 90 pounds soaking wet she almost pummeled our big brother Mick when he made an uncouth crack. I literally had to lift her kicking and screaming off of him. Mick learned his lesson and her display became an object lesson for Pat and Seamus, if only because they never wanted to incur the wrath of Jules." At the thought of this the corners of Collin's mouth turned sad, guilt and shame overshadowing the humor of the memory. "She always stood up for me," he whispered as he cast his eyes downward.

Sam thought how he could understand Jules' brother's sense of guilt. It was obvious to Sam that he felt guilty for not keeping in close contact with his little sister, especially given Collin's confirmation of Jules' fierce sense of loyalty to him. Sam knew that if during the time that he had little or no contact with Natalie she was severely injured, he would have felt guilty for not standing by her side more when she wasn't in such dire straits. But Sam was sure he had never seen Collin, or anyone from Jules' family for that matter, before, not even after she was shot or nearly bleed to death while being infected with anthrax, so he figured that just compounded his guilt. This emotion seemed to be tearing Collin up from the inside, and Sam knew that couldn't be healthy or anywhere near what Jules would want, especially since she seemed to be so protective of her brother. Sam knew he wasn't an authority on knowing how to keep malignant emotions from demolishing oneself from the inside out, but he figured he should encourage Collin along the way to a more positive state of being.

"You know, Collin," Sam's words brought Collin's eyes back up from their down-cast placement of shame. "I know you probably feel guilty and all about losing touch with Jules, but I don't think she would want you to suffer so much at her expense."

Rather than smiling or even nodding in return at Sam's words of advice, Sam was surprised to see Collin narrow his eyes instead. He shook his head slowly before responding, "I don't think you get it."

Sam narrowed his own eyes and jerked his head in confusion, but before he could inquire as to what Collin meant by this cryptic response, a nurse entered the room and silenced both men's desires for conversation.

"Didn't mean to interrupt anything, gentlemen," the nurse said as she approached Jules' bed. "Just need to adjust her IV and change her bandages." The nurse frowned slightly. "This could be disturbing for you two, so it might be a good idea if you take a break and get some coffee or something."

It was Sam's turn to frown. He shook his head. "No. As long as I'm aloud to be here, I'm not leaving Jules. Not for anything." He leaned down and kissed Jules' cheek. "I promise I won't leave you," he said softly to Jules and Jules alone. Collin nodded his head in strong agreement. He wouldn't be vacating his place in the room either.

The nurse shrugged, but smiled at Sam's private, yet inadvertently public display of affection. She could just imagine how the world fell away for him when he was with a person whom she was now learning on a daily basis from both Sam and the rest of her SWAT team was an extraordinary police officer and woman who had the misfortune to be her patient. "Just give me some space then, please."

Sam nodded, squeezed Jules' hand and stepped to the back of the ICU room. "Has anyone given the rest of the team an up-date yet?" Sam inquired as the nurse replaced Jules' IV with a fresh one. "I'm sure they're all anxious for news and they'll be happy to hear about her progress." Sam punctuated this statement with a sly smile as if to say, 'see, I told you Jules would fight through this.'

The nurse nodded and grinned as she removed the old bandages wrapped around Jules' head. "Dr. McDonna said he was going to give them a report as soon as he finished his rounds. Pending any complications," the nurse began to adjust a clean bandage, "I'd say Officer Callaghan here will continue to make progress…."

…The Jinx was set.

"Oh no," the nurse whispered before she frantically smacked the call button behind Jules' bed and grabbed a stack of bandages beside her.

The smile that was on Sam's face at the encouraging thought of Jules' further progress lingered until the gears in his head started to work in response to the nurses incongruent actions after making such statements. "Jules?" he whispered before springing to action and jumping to her side. "Jules!" he shouted as he grabbed her hand, hoping his loud shouts and less than gentle physical contact would force an involuntary response from her like it did before. When he stared at her face, hoping for some sign, not only did what he see discourage him, but it frightened him more than he had been frightened since he had initial frantically run to her side on the rooftop. Not only was there no response apparent on her face, but he could see blood seeping through the bandages around her severely injured head. "JULES!" he shouted even louder, the sight before him igniting fear in his entire body like never before.

As tears started to unconsciously roll down Sam's face as he repeatedly brought her hand to his lips to kiss and pleaded with her in nearly inaudible whispers to stay with him, Collin stood immobile, rooted in his spot at the back of the room as guilt and fear caused tears to cascade down his own face.

Soon, the doctor Sam recognized from Jules' first day and night in the ICU burst into the room and was shouting at the interns who trailed him to get Sam out of the way. "What the Hell happened?" Sam shouted as he was pulled out of the room. "Jules—" he began but stared and stopped when he caught a glimpse of Jules' heart-rate monitor beeping unnaturally frantically. "Just," he sighed in defeat and whispered, "What the Hell happened?"

6:19 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

When Greg had entered the court room to witness Ed's arraignment the day before, he had been surprised to hear that the hearing had ended nearly five minutes before. He had been flabbergasted to know that not only had the hearing taken place earlier than scheduled, but that it had also been completed so quickly. His shock was increased by the information he'd gleaned from someone who had been present during the arraignment that bail had been denied to Ed on grounds of flight risks and assumed danger to the community. Greg had had to leave the court house immediately after hearing this intelligence for fear that he would lash out publicly like he had been known to do in his locker room after extremely difficult hot calls.

Greg knew that his desire to react violently like this at the news that Ed was being treated worse than a common career criminal came as a result that he felt like he was at wits' end. The near deadly results of the events that had happened to Jules along with the team's collective reactions had him feeling like the sky was going to completely fall in and crush the world into smithereens of nothingness at any moment. Sometimes, like in the time he was in the court house hearing about what had happened to Ed, he had thought what a relief it would be if the sky actually did fall. So called 'experts' had been predicting the apocalypse was coming every few months for the past few years, he figured in these moments of self-defeat that it was high time for those predictions to come true. To end the suffering, the teams, his, Jules'.

And he knew the rest of the team felt somewhere along these lines about a desired end to all of the pain, suffering that was occurring as a result of one man's selfish and misguided simple action three days before. Raf had begun to contemplate quitting the SRU, Spike seemed trapped in some self-imposed mental prison the last time he'd seen him, Ed was over-reacting and attacking people he felt, and in actuality were completely responsible for Jules' current state, while Sam was punching public property and falling apart at the seams. And even though he wanted to hand-off the responsibility, give his position of leadership to someone younger, quicker, brighter, and retire into the night where he wouldn't have to deal with the fall-out of the adverse aspects of police work, he knew he couldn't. That's what Jules had been there for.

After leaving the court house and getting his head together, regrouping to be the strong leader everyone on Team One expected and needed him to be, he had sought out Ed's lawyer and his friend Ted Sands to see what had really gone on at the hearing. When he'd finally used his detective training to track Ted down to an old coffee house east of a small university, it had been nearly 9 pm. Greg attributed this slow and inefficient detective work to atrophy. He thought how that made sense. The person who'd done most of the team's detective work during hot calls the past few years had been not him, but Jules. He thought how she probably would have found Ted in half an hour, stopping for a coffee with cream, no sugar at Timmy's along the way. Again he was reminded how much he relied on Jules, how much he depended on her and planned for her to replace him, a younger, faster, stronger, quicker witted version of himself and a sniper to boot.

When he talked to Ted he'd learned that both Judge McDuff and prosecutor Taylor had been rumored to have strong biases against police officers. Ted had been working on compiling a list of past jurisprudence precedent to prove this in an appeal and had asked Greg for help in his research. Greg had assured him by 11 pm that after he caught a few hours' sleep (because, truly, he was falling on his face on the questionably clean parlor table in front of him with sleep deprivation) that he would enlist at least Spike's and possibly Wordy's help in this endeavor. He knew that their work would come a lot more quickly with the help of a computer whiz and a rising star detective.

So now in the early hours of the morning, Greg found himself striding back towards the ICU waiting room of St. Patrick's hospital to get an update on Jules before he used his personally appraised as abysmal detective work to track down Spike for his help in their current investigation. Greg was shocked, but not really surprised, to see Spike sitting in a semi-catatonic state when he entered the waiting room.

The sight of Spike here, still in this medical purgatory after three days increased Greg's already heightened sense of being on edge. He knew he should contain his frustration at the realization that Spike had probably not slept at all in said past three days, but, being on edge and functioning on sleep deprivation himself, he couldn't contain all of his annoyance. "Spike. Why are you still here?" he questioned in expressed irritation. _Fail, Greg. Fail._

Spike jerked his head up sharply at the sound of Greg's voice, shaken from whatever world he'd existed in in his mind. A slight bit of rage and annoyance shown on Spike's face as well. "Because, I failed her, Boss! Just like I did before, just like I did with Lew!" Spike said these words a little louder and more passionately then he had obviously intended to and he seemed to be shocked by his own outburst.

Greg knew he should respond point blank to Spike's feelings of failing his friends, but he wanted more information before he mentally dueled with a genius and trained SRU officer like Spike.

Spike didn't disappoint him and began to speak without any prompting except for that of Greg's calm, fatherly face. "I already lost one of my best friends," Spike voiced in a defeated tone. "Now I think…" he struggled to get his thoughts out. "I think I might lose the other…"

Greg could almost see the gears working in Spike's head, see that he wasn't at the end of expressing his collective thoughts. Thus, although training and experience had always taught Greg to step in at this point and reassure his subject, his friend, he refrained from doing so now with Spike.

_Great_, he thought to himself, _now I'm starting to think of my adopted family as subjects_. This situation was turning the world on its head.

Spike shrugged in front of him and gave him a flat, disgusted smile. "And if THAT's the way the world is, that's what happens when I make the choices I make, what happens when I take the actions I take, then I can't believe any of this is real. I can't believe that more than one single person is conscious and aware, or more than one single person exists at all." Spike broke off from looking into the space where presumably his disconcerting thoughts were taking place and stared at Greg straight on with a smile one would give to a slow, but trying eight year old in math class. "I know it doesn't make sense, but that's just how I feel."

Greg shook his head, yet still gave a smile to his struggling young officer. He knew it was right to wait until Spike had gotten to the heart of his thinking before he made any negotiator like comments. Of course, Spike had thought himself into some tangle, some web where he believed that the world as they knew it couldn't really exist if these were the things that happened in it. He'd carefully thought it out, created a logic to it that would explain and confirm where his thoughts had taken him. Greg thought how that was the problem with hyper intelligent and intuitive people like Spike: they could get entrapped and tormented by their own musings and logic. Though she wasn't nearly as good with computers, Greg had always been glad that Jules was the type of hyper intelligent person who could ground herself in reality without being drawn to ideas of grandeur and alternate realities like Spike. He never had to worry about having a conversation with her about how everyone she knew, everything she saw, felt, touched, was really real. That this was just the world. Jules just got that, sometimes more than Greg himself.

"Spike," Greg sighed, "YOU exist. JULES exists. And you didn't do this to her. You didn't kill Lew. Nothing you thought or did caused either of those events." Greg reached out and grabbed Spike's shoulder. "You are a good man and a good friend who has always done his job and protected your friends the best that you could. Your guilt, shame, and the confusion you're feeling right now is misdirected." Greg smiled in assurance to Spike. "You didn't do anything to cause this or to hurt Jules or Lew, EVER. This is just the job, the world we live in. We think we can control or have an influence on everything and everyone around us, but that's just not the way things work, Spike."

Greg realized if he was to get Spike to believe the words he was speaking, he'd have to believe them himself. He smiled to himself at the thought that he didn't have to handle the weight of the world or even just his team himself. Even Atlas couldn't stand the weight of Team One.

"The world, REALITY," Greg continued after his own brief epiphany, "Spike, can harsh and cruel and unpredictable, uncontrollable. You, my friend," Greg placed his free hand on Spike's other shoulder," have nothing to do with that."

Spike seemed to take these words in, think about them, digest them as Greg continued on another track. "And Jules, Spike, Jules is a fighter. Lew didn't have the chance she has. You just need to hold onto that knowledge and hope," Greg said, trying to convince himself as well as Spike. "We all do," he finished in a diminutive voice.

Spike nodded his head in acknowledgment, seeming to take Greg's words to heart.

Recovering from his own sense of dread at the thought that Jules might not make it through this, end up like Lew, he looked Spike back square in the eye. "Now, I want you to go home and get some sleep, then come to my place at 3 this afternoon. We need you to help get Ed out on bail. That's an order," Greg said strongly, but good naturedly.

As he finished this last sentiment, he looked behind Spike's shoulder to see Jules' doctor approaching with a bit of a smile on his face. Greg assumed that since only he and Spike were in the ICU this early in the morning, the doctor was approaching them to give an update on Jules. However, when the doctor was less than 20 feet away, he paused to answer his pager and frowned before a look of fear rose to his face and he turned to, not walk or even walk quickly, but to run in the direction from which he had come.

The agony of fear and anxiety immediately flooded Greg's senses, because, somehow, he inexplicably knew it was Jules.

**Additional Author's Note: **As if there wasn't enough drama in this story, drama. I'm thinking there's not enough angst now…maybe I should think about adding that…

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed Sam and Collin attempting to bond in this troubled time and Greg verbally smacking some sense into Spike.

Thanks for reading,

Eals


	11. The Time Keeps Slipping Away

**Author's Note: **Yo, peeps! Thanks, as always, to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and following this story. You always make my day. I'm really tired and quite possibly fried some brain cells doing a self-imposed sprint workout in the high heat of the day, so I'll end this right here.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint, The Wizard of Oz, or Golden Girls

Glasgow

Chapter 10: The Time Keeps Slipping Away

**Day 3**

2:29 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

It had been approximately eight hours since Greg had looked over his subordinate officer's shoulder to see a doctor he knew was treating Jules turn swiftly on his heel and begin to sprint in the direction from which he had come. Approximately eight hours since he had over-looked this fact, stared straight into Spike's face and told him he'd see him at 3 this afternoon. Approximately eight hours since he'd basically flat out lied to one of the officers under his leadership in the hopes of protecting him, from himself, from the world, from the truth that would set no one free.

And he didn't know what this made him. An angel of mercy protecting the innocent from aspects of the world and of life that they simply were not equipped to handle, or a devil, thinking in and motivated by nothing but falsehoods, speaking only in lies. He did not know if his actions, or rather, failure of actions made him a good cop or a bad cop, a good commander or a bad commander, leader of troops, today or at any point in the last week, the last year, the entire portion of his life as a commanding officer.

That question had been nagging him since he watched the ambulance pull away with the broken body and mind of his fallen sniper, negotiator, partner, friend, surrogate daughter. Was he a good sergeant, a good leader? In his decisions and the motivations behind them, was he an ethical man, a good man?

And these questions had only lingered and taunted him since their inception, because he knew the one person that he would trust to answer them wasn't here, in the truest sense of the word, to answer them. The one person in the world he would trust to give him a full and truthful answer, now, in this moment, he realized, and really since he watched that doctor run, not walk, in the direction of the ICU, may never be here for him or anyone else again. The update and confirmation of his deathly speculations by an ICU nurse only solidified this fact within him.

So he continued to wonder and was haunted by the fact that if Jules was here, really here, conscious and aware of her surroundings, the world at large, the events at large, Greg's actions, she would tell him if keeping the truth from Spike was the right thing to do. She would tell him if his perceived sin of Omission was actually an act of mercy. She would tell him based on his actions, or rather, lack thereof, if he was a good leader, today, this week, during his entire career as Team One's Sergeant. She would tell him based on his thoughts and motivations if he was moral, ethical. She would tell him if he was a good man.

And he would trust her evaluation, both of him as a leader and as a human being. If this overall situation had shown him anything, it was how much he relied on her and trusted her opinions. He'd felt lost, felt like a hollow man, a man missing a moral compass, a man missing the heart of his humanity, since she had been gone in a realm he couldn't reach, couldn't touch, couldn't feel emotionally or physically. He'd once told Jules she was his right hand, his heart. Without her, he'd felt like an amputated Tin Man who was also somehow a brainless Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion, because, truth be told, he wasn't much without his heart and right hand.

And thus he was hollow.

With the information provided by the ICU nurse nearly eight hours before, he feared he would non-live the rest of his life as a hollow man, a cored apple of existence.

Sam had been 'escorted,' or rather dragged, back into the waiting room by a burly intern with a tall man who bore a striking resemblance to his fallen sniper fallowing in a daze in their wake. Sam had look inconsolable, like he was burning, cracking from the inside-out into a the million shards of glass his life had become since his other half was gravely injured. He was incoherent in his agony and only looked at Greg with tears in his eyes, shook his head once and collapsed into the same chair he'd sat with his tortured thoughts in for hours on end before. The tall man sank, with a look of defeat and guilt on his face, into the chair beside Sam and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder that Greg knew Sam just didn't have the energy, will, strength to shrug off. Greg knew none of those malignant states of being came from the fact that he'd barely eaten or slept from the time since he'd probably woken up with Jules on the beautiful and normal seeming morning that only gave birth to that dark and destructive afternoon, but from the fact that he was becoming mentally and emotionally defeated, becoming a hollow man of his own creation. Greg couldn't lend him a hand or a heart, because his was held captive in the same place Sam's was.

Minutes later, an ICU nurse appeared with traces of blood, Greg shuddered to imagine it as Jules' blood, on her scrubs. She'd explained that while she was changing Jules' bandages, a broken piece of bone had moved and ruptured a blood vessel in her brain. The doctors were in surgery with her now to stop the bleeding, and because they'd caught it so early, there was reason for hope. The nurse said all this with the shame and contrition of a guilty party, as if she was solely responsible for the inevitable strife that was caused by hard metal connecting with soft, fragile, unprotected bone. Greg had never, ever, even when she was shot or when she was bleeding out from a fracture wound to an artery, thought of Jules as fragile. Not until that bastard broke her on that rooftop. Greg had frowned to himself at the thought, because now he understood why Ed, errant son that he as a pathetic leader could not control, had done what he'd done.

XXXXX

The blood was on his hands again, her blood, Jules' blood. He couldn't see it, not this time, because it hadn't physically touched him as it turned the nurse's bandages red, but he could feel it as it haunted his soul.

He looked down at his injured hand, just now registering that it hurt. That made sense. The endorphins, dopamine, serotonin that had coursed through his brain at the thought of Jules getting better had over shadowed those pain receptors when he'd used his two hands to clap to wake her, but had ceased to work the moment he'd seen her blood. Like a crack addict with the cocaine blues, he was a Jules addict and was now suffering the effects of the over release of pleasure and pain fighting neurotransmitters. His stores were depleted. He was in agony, but somehow the mental anguish of knowing Jules had taken a bad turn was worse than any physical pain he could ever feel. It was a cursed form of overshadowing.

He promised himself that she would fight this, just like she always fought before. Just like she'd been fighting since the moment cold metal invaded the bastion of her thoughts. Just like she had when a bullet entered her ribcage, collapsing a lung and making it nearly impossible for her to breath. Just like she had when the blood had pooled out of her body before him, behind a pane of glass and wall of departmental ethical regulations while deadly spores invaded her lungs, that same lung that had collapsed twice within his viewing. Any other person would have given into the pain and darkness that encroached on them in that same situation. But Jules didn't. She headed Sarge's personal plea to her and hung on for just those few moments more before they could dissolve the situation as a team. She'd fought for and gained the right to reclaim her life.

Jules was a fighter in so many ways for so many things. He knew how hard she'd fought to just simply get into the police department, how much more she'd fought for her spot on Team One, how much she'd had to fight, even harder still because of him, to reclaim her spot on the team after she'd already fought her way to simply not die from the gunshot and its resulting effects.

Sam smiled to himself at the thought of her always fighting so hard, almost always against both the inherent and circumstance imposed limitations of her body. Here mind was always stronger than those physical limitations, and in that lied the secrete to her uncanny ability to overcome, survive.

But sometimes, Sam frowned and shook his head for a moment, sometimes that inherent ability and will to overcome made her push herself too far too soon. It was a consequence of being a bad-ass. These times caused set-backs that sometimes he wondered if she caused intentionally just for the added challenged, because she'd always managed to overcome theses as well.

He thought back to that day early on in her recover from the gunshot when her fighting spirit had pushed her a bit too far too early. He'd promised to help her in her first physical therapy session, to which she had simply rolled her eyes at him but accepted the chance to spend time with him in a setting she was hoping wouldn't send-off alarm bells to Sarge about their relationship. Sam hadn't had the heart to tell her at that point that he was afraid the cat had been completely freed from the bag during his tearful effusion of emotion over her unconscious body the night after she was shot. He'd smiled to himself at the thought of her hopeful naiveté and the thought of being able to touch her freely and in public under the guise of helping her complete a set of exercises.

So caught up in his joy of seeing the woman he had secretly come to love, he had nearly run straight into a tall dark haired man just before he entered Jules' room. Making his apologies quickly, her turned and entered her room to see her already seated in a wheel chair, waiting to be led to the physical therapy room. "Jules," he said cheerfully, but soon frowned when he caught a look of pain on her face. "Jules, are you okay?" He quickly rushed forward to make sure nothing was amiss.

The moment her eyes met his, the pain or sadness on her face was replaced by a smile, but one that did not reach her eyes. "Hey, Sam. Yeah," she shook her head and made the fake smile on her face larger, "just nervous, I guess."

Sam narrowed his eyes slightly. The only time he'd seen Jules nervous was when she was trying to talk down a damaged teenager with a gun on her while she was unarmed. He knew that nervousness had come as a result of her fear of failure, or 'screw'n up' as she called it. He supposed she had that same fear today on the first day she was cleared to use some of her damaged and recently untrained muscles. Thus, he simply smiled and took her at her word, not thinking he needed to delve any further. "You'll be fine, Jules," he assured as he reached out to chastely stroke her chin. "I know you probably want to, but you really don't HAVE to win a heptathlon today."

She chuckled softly, but the look of what she'd claimed was nervousness returned to her face minutely. "Thanks, Sam."

Sam tilted his head and continued to stare at her. "Are you sure you're okay. I mean, it hasn't been that long at all. No one would blame you if you want to take a few more days before—"

"No!" Jules cut him off, anger replacing the look on her face. "I'm fine, Sam. I just want to get back to the job, my LIFE, as soon as I can, and I'm not gonna do that by lying in bed watching re-runs of Golden Girls on TV." Her eyes smoldered in her answer, and Sam knew there was no use arguing with her.

He sighed, but tried to give her a reassuring smile. "Alright, but let me push you there. My father trained me to be a perfect gentleman, and I will take no for an answer." Sam expected to hear some snide remark from her in return, but she only shrugged, a look of dejection lining her face.

When they'd gotten to the physical therapy session, her trainer had instructed her to do up to three sets of ten elastic band exercises, depending on how she felt, which would help build back up the muscles in her chest, back, and torso that had been eviscerated by the passage of a piece of hot metal through her body nearly two weeks before.

Sam had watched her struggle through the first set, taking what seemed like three times longer than she normally would have with more resistance in her normal, undamaged state. He frowned as she began the second, a look of mixed determination and what he could only guess was pissed-off fury lining her face. "Whoa, Jules," he cautioned. He knew the numerous stitches used to bind her skin and organs back together were still fresh and liable to pop with too much exertion. "Take it easy." His words were pleading as he imagined the dire consequences that could come from her innate tenacity.

Jules merely narrowed her eyes at him, challenging him as she challenged herself, and continued the set.

By the ninth repetition in the second set, she was struggling, breathing harder than he'd ever seen her on the obstacle course at work and grimacing in pain. She seemed to do the tenth repetition on sheer grit and will power. As she sat resting, trying to calm her breath and will strength back into her muscles, he could see by the look in her eyes and expression of her face that she was preparing herself to perform the final set. He really didn't think that was such a smart idea in her current (he would never voice it to her, but) delicate state. "That was good work, Jules," he grinned at her, continuing the encouraging words he'd been feeding her throughout the entire session, which by the reactive look in her eyes he could tell only slightly pissed her off by their patronizing nature.

He reached out and began to rub her shoulder and back muscles, which he could only guess were causing her pain right now. "The therapist said up to three sets of ten. You look a little beat. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel for today."

Immediately he cringed at his words and prepared himself for a verbal onslaught. No one ever suggested Julianna Callaghan should throw in the towel, not for anything. No one ever suggested she was too weak, either in strength or will to complete any endeavor she set out to conquer.

She looked up at him as if she wanted to spit in his face, spit out her fury at him for his suggestive words and at the entire situation for the pain and doubt it had caused within her. Her eyes twitched with the adrenaline her anger had engendered. "No, Sam," she began darkly. "This is my life, and NO ONE and nothing are going to keep me from getting back to it." As she reached forward to begin the next set, Sam found himself wondering if her words hadn't had deeper meaning than what she was letting on to.

Worry lines began to etch their way onto Sam's face as he watched her continue to struggle, too worried about offending her mentally to step in like he should have and stop her from pushing herself too hard. He could tell that pure, unadulterated rage was what was fueling her efforts. He gasped when she pulled back violently for the sixth repetition as he saw a look of pain replace the anger on her face at the same time he saw a drop of blood seep through her white t-shirt. "Jules!" he shouted as she released the bands and fell sideways. "Someone get some help!" he commanded as he reached forward to stem the flow of blood.

"Damn-it, Jules, you ripped your stiches," he whispered harshly to himself more than to her. "Just stay cal—"

And then he heard it. That same gasping sound that had torn his soul to shreds on the top of that roof nearly two weeks before. She couldn't breathe. Her one intact lung was struggling for air because the other had collapsed again.

"Left," she uttered between struggles for breath.

"I'm not leaving," Sam promised, continued to keep pressure on her wound as emergency personnel began to arrive.

"Call," she gasped out.

"Shh, shh, Jules," Sam tried to sooth her. "I already called for help and they're already getting here. Don't try to talk anymore. Just save your strength, try to breathe," he pleaded.

"Call left," she struggled out over his pleadings and Sam began to think that she wasn't completely with him.

Within seconds, emergency personnel had arrived to take her. She'd needed both her external and internal stitches repaired and her lung re-inflated again, but it had only caused her a set-back of about a week and a half.

Jules was a fighter, always had been and always would be. Sometimes she worked too hard at it, but it had always been the enduring quality that had saved her and other people's lives time and time again. He had no doubt she would fight, for herself, for him, now.

As he sat and relived this memory of Jules' tenacity, he contemplated how he'd always wondered what she was trying to say, either to him or herself, what she had fought through gasping breaths of pain to communicate while she was too incapacitated to make any coherent conversation.

Left. Call. Call Left. The tall, dark haired man outside her room. Call, Col.

Sam narrowed his eyes.

Before he even knew what he was doing, he violently rose from his chair and had the man sitting next to him by the scruff of his collar. He lifted him and pinned him to the wall, angry adrenaline coursing through his veins and allowing him to ignore the new pain in his fractured hand and injured arm. "You," he breathed out darkly.

"Whoa, Sam!" Greg shouted as he witnessed Sam's assault on the man he too had just recently learned was Jules' brother. "What the Hell are you doing?"

But Sam had no time to deal with his Sergeant. He reached out and pushed him away with the injured hand that refused to even attempt to hold him back in his violent endeavors. "What did you do to her," he continued in a dark tone as his hand reconnected with the scruff of Collin's shirt and he shook him in fury.

"Sam!" Greg repeated as he worked to get up from the floor Sam's broken hand had vanquished him to.

"Four years ago, when she was starting physical therapy after being shot, you did or said something to her that made her so angry she pushed herself too far, tore her stitches, re-collapsed a lung. She could have died because of you!" Sam's rage increased.

During this entire sequence of events, Collin took Sam's abuse; it was as if he felt he deserved this punishment. "I," he began, but hung his head in shame. Sam shook him once more to prompt his confession as Greg reached out to try to pull his arms off Jules' brother. "I cut her out of my life…I told her I couldn't watch her die from this job…"

Collin's dejected words compounded the agony Sam was under and he allowed Collin's feet to touch back down on the ground, but his hands still retained possession of Collin's shirt. "Neither can I," Sam nearly whispered. "But I'm not a coward like you. I would never leave her," he continued in a stronger tone, darkness returning to his voice.

"Sam!" Greg attempted to draw his attention again, knowing full well that Jules' brother was suffering in this situation as well and did not deserve Sam's physical abuse, no matter what he had said or done in the past. Everyone had already seen with Ed where that line of action led a person.

Sam jerked his head in Greg's direction, all the fury, rage, worry, fear leaking out of his eyes. "I was gonna propose to her tomorrow, Sarge!" he shouted, his seemingly non-sequitur words explaining more about his actions than anything Greg could ever guess.

"Aw, Sam," he said softly as he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder as if he was attempting to compound his own suffering by transferring some of what Sam was feeling to himself through simple, non-verbal communication.

Sam turned his head back towards Collin, tears brimming his eyes. "I take back what I said before. You do deserve to feel guilty."

With that, he let go of Collin's shirt and allowed Greg to lead him away from the emotionally fraught situation, but not away from the overpowering malignant emotions that were now ruling his life.

**Additional Author's Note: **I'm still tired, mostly because I just wrote the first author's note approximately 30 seconds ago. I really love Greg's part in this chapter. I love exploring his guilt (not hard to find; Greg feels guilty about not tying his shoes properly) and the Wiz of Ozzie metaphor. I just coined that nick-name. Fried brain cells…I'm probably leaving something out, but, whatev…

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter : )

Peace to you all, and thanks for reading,

Eals


	12. Sorry I Made a Mistake

**Author's Note: **Yo…yeah, sorry it's been so long that you probably forgot who I was…Um, Mea Culp—Nah, guys. I am sorry, but had family to help take care of last week along with a lot of work (YAY! No, seriously, work=money in my menial jobs while I'm trying to get my REAL dream job), so writing for no money went by the wayside. Anyho, how 'bout them Olympics? Even devoid of having a family member competing this time around, they're pretty aweso— So, thanks to all who have been reading, reviewing, following, and being patient with me, (*silently and metaphorically kicks herself*) this story. Only a little more left, which I'm hoping to get done before the end of August, because after that, stuff's about to get real with the cops. (And most of you have no clue what that means, so I'll just leave you to your ponderings).

I don't own Flashpoint, _Pygmalion_, or _My Fair Lady._

Glasgow

Chapter 11: Sorry I Made a Mistake

**Day 3**

5:42pm, Offices Ted Sands, Attorney At Law

As Greg sat reading through old arrest reports, he thought back to the moment when he had arrived at his apartment nearly an hour later than he had promised Spike, dreading the discussion he would have to have with the man.

When he had arrived at his empty apartment, both inside and out, he had been somewhat relieved. He had had no inclination to believe that Spike had simply stood him up on his request for help in establishing a case for an appeal for Ed; his beliefs in team loyalty and devotion were confirmed when he had arrived at Spike's apartment to find the man had, thankfully, simply slept through his alarm clock. Spike's flustered expression as he'd answered the door had brought a small smile to Greg's face.

"Boss, sorry," Spike breathed out in a huff. "I know I was supposed to be at your place over an hour ago, but, oh man…" he trailed off, seeming to deem no excuse he could ever offer worthy enough as an explanation for letting his teammate down.

Greg smirked lightly. "No, Spike. Really," he paused and frowned at himself, his feelings of guilt returning to the forefront of his thoughts. "I was actually late getting back to my apartment anyway."

Spike caught sight of his superior officer's frown for the first time. He furrowed his brow and waited for Greg to elaborate.

"Spike, I should be the one apologizing," Greg finally continued. "Jules," he sighed and shook his head. "Jules had a complication, and I," he paused to shake his head at Spike and give him a sad, nearly flat-lined smile, "I knew about it before you left. Saw her doctor running in the other direction over your shoulder."

Spike remained silent, but his eyebrows returned to a natural position. Greg felt the need to resume his act of contrition.

"I know I should have told you, not left you out of the loop from something serious, but I just…" Greg found it hard to end his thought. "I just didn't think you needed to hear that. I figured I was protecting you or something."

Spike began to smile softly, but stopped as a thought occurred to his freshly awakened psyche. "Is she okay, Boss?"

Greg shrugged, shook his head, allowed a slightly dejected look to rise to his visage. "I waited long enough to get an update that the surgery was going well and nearly over, but," he breathed out deeply and shook his head up to the ceiling, "I didn't want to let you or Ed down. I didn't want to let anyone down." Greg scoffed, raised his hands, and gave a self-referential disgusted smile. "But, I just seem to keep doing that."

Spike's brow resumed its previous furrowed position while Greg continued. "I can't comfort Sam, can't assure Raf that the work of the SRU isn't completely useless." He began to shake his head more violently as the disgusted look on his face grew to utter self-hatred. "I'm lying to you; Ed's taking matters into his own hands, because I'm not man enough to do something more drastic within the department. And Jules," the look on his face turned from disgust to dejection. "I didn't make sure she was covered. I didn't give her a spotter or make sure the uniforms had the area contained." He began to nod his head as if conveying some learned knowledge. "As the leader of the SRU team on the scene, it was MY JOB to make sure those auxiliary forces were coordinated and doing what they were supposed to do. But, I didn't. I completely failed her, and the sad part is, the only person I would really trust to give me an honest and full assessment of my actions and command decisions IS her."

Unbeknownst to Greg, Spike had begun to smile back at him. Greg continued his self-destructive rant without even catching sight of it. "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, because I think I've just been relying on her to tell me for the last few years."

At the conclusion of his words, Greg looked up at Spike as if he had forgotten that the younger man was even in the room. "I'm sorry," he began before seeing the smile on Spike's face. He frowned in confusion rather than self-hatred.

Spike chuckled softly. "Ya know, Boss, for an incredibly intuitive person, you can be pretty obtuse sometimes."

Greg flicked his eyes and furrowed his own brow. "What?"

Spike sighed as if he was about to explain something to a 15 year old who just never did his homework. "Sarge, just this morning weren't you the one to tell ME that none of this was my fault?"

Greg simply stared at him blankly in reply.

Spike's jovial expression turned to one of confidence in his beliefs. "None of this is your fault either, Boss. You didn't cause the uniforms to not contain the area properly; you didn't make Raf feel inadequate in this job; you didn't make Ed beat-up the assailant like Batman the vigilante; you didn't really lie to me, because you didn't know for sure what was going on; and, dear Lord, Boss, you sure as HELL didn't make Sam fall head over heels for Jules." He smiled at this last thought. Being true friends with Jules longer than most of the others on the team, he was glad she'd finally found someone to treat and love her the way she deserved to be.

"Boss, you don't have to take care of everyone and carry our weight all the time." He placed a hand on Greg's shoulder in a similar manner that Greg had done with him earlier in the day. "We're adults and have to take care of ourselves sometimes. We have to live with our own decisions. Sure," Spike scoffed and borrowed one of Jules' patented eye rolls, "we're gonna need help with stuff, especially because we're a team. Of course you feel like you need Jules to tell you what to do right now; you're just used to her input at work. You rely on her just like you relied," Spike paused for a second to smile sadly, but with the joy of happily remembered friendship, "on Lew. Just like you rely on Sam and Ed to take a good shot. Just like you rely on me to know all the new computer programs and technology that only geeks really know about," Spike said with a shrug and grin.

"My point is, Boss, if in fact, which you so well convinced me of this morning with your 'mad negotiating skills' as the kids these days would say," Spike paused to catch the resulting smile on Greg's face at the thought of Dean having used a phrase like that in the past, "this is just the way the world is. We just have to accept that we can't control everything, that we're not responsible for everything and everyone." Spike shook his head. "There's no reason why you should be exempt from that, Boss."

Greg had smiled, but internally kicked himself at the thought of reneging on his early morning promise of remembering that he need not be Atlas with the world, or even Team One, on his shoulders. Spike was right; although he was the leader of the team, and the person who held the most responsibility towards it, he had to realize that the true purpose of the team was to act as a single unit. Not one person had to shoulder ALL of the responsibility. He realized he'd been putting more responsibility on Jules in her critical state than she really deserved. He realized his own self-doubts had to be dealt with by he himself at this juncture, not someone he'd come to rely on far more than she'd ever even known.

And so Greg had resolved to spread the responsibility of taking care of the various members of the team. He'd resolved to do his fair share, but not attempt to save the world single handedly.

And thus was his mindset as he, Spike, and Ted sat in Ted's legal offices as they worked together to piece together an appeal to have the decision of Ed's bail hearing over-turned.

"Got it," Spike enthused, fully bringing Greg back into the moment. A smile stretched across his entire face at his brilliant success.

"What is it, Spike?" Greg asked as he moved to look over Spike's shoulder at the screen of his computer. "Please tell me you finally got into Taylor's file. Any parking ticket Ed might have given her could explain her animosity."

Spike scoffed. "Oh, way better than that, Boss. I got her son's sealed arrest files opened." Ted narrowed his eyes at Spike; any illegally obtained information would not help their case, and he knew Spike was great at hacking into various and sundry systems. "Don't worry, Ted," Spike replied catching the look on the lawyer's face. "I've already called in a favor to have a judge legally unseal the records." He shrugged. "Just figured we could get a jump on things faster this way."

Ted narrowed his eyes farther, un-scrunched his face and tilted his head in thought, then shrugged. "Yeah, okay, I'll buy that."

Greg chuckled at the exchange between the two younger men. "Spike?" he prodded.

Spike shook himself back into his focused mind-set and turned his attention back to the screen. "So, we already know that Taylor contributes to a political action committee that advocates the reduction in power of the police force, but now we have a reason why." Spike turned around to smile broadly at the two men standing behind him, once more celebrating his own success. "It seems her eldest son had a few run ins with the law." As Spike returned his attention back to his screen, his grin turned to a frown. "Apparently, he was arrested a few times for drug infractions. But, he was killed in a shoot-out on the last bust."

Greg blew a sharp breath out and nodded his head. "Let me guess, Taylor filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer who made the fatal shot."

Spike nodded and continued to frown. "Yep, but it was found to be a good shoot, and the case was dismissed."

"So, the prosecutor has a grudge against cops. She probably should have recused herself from this case based on that, but an opinion, even based on prior experience, isn't enough to argue that," Ted replied in defeat.

Spike grinned darkly and shook his head. "That's not the kicker. Apparently one of the previous arrests of the kid was done by Ed when he was still a regular patrolman." He scoffed in disgust. "The woman has a personal grudge against him."

Greg shook his head and returned Spike's dark smile. "So Judge McDuff was using this case to help his 'Tough on Crime, No Matter the Criminal' campaign to be retain his seat as a judge with the administration that's trying to replace him, and now we find out that Prosecutor Taylor not only has a long line of cases against cops, but she has a personal vendetta against them, Ed in particular." He turned to Ted. "You think that'll be enough?"

A smile etched the young attorney's face. "By Jove, gentlemen, I think we've got it."

Spike simply brightened his grin at these words, but Greg, giddy from the impromptu team's success chuckled and patted the young man he had once saved on the back and replied, "Come on, junior. I bet you don't even know what that's a quote from."

Ted frowned and furrowed his brows before answering in confusion, "Um, every TV show ever made?"

Greg smiled and face-palmed, not even condoning the thought of enlightening the young man that it was originally from _Pygmalion_, the stage predecessor to _My Fair Lady_. "Kids these days," he jokingly grunted softly.

Ted smirked and scoffed in jest. "Whatever, other Grandpa," he labeled Greg remembering the epithet he'd previously given Ed. He folded his hands in a praying motion and replied in a faux innocent, high pitched voice, "I only wish to one day be old enough, wise enough, and as good of a leader as the great SRU Sergeant Gregory Parker."

Spike nodded his head in agreement to Ted's joking words, signaling with his eyes that Greg should take them seriously.

Greg caught Spike's messaged and ginned in return. Wisdom was an ever growing thing, and something that could be gleaned from more than one person or source.

6:13 pm, St. Patrick's Hospital

As Sam sat, pointedly separated by five chairs from Collin, in the same Purgatory he'd been assigned to for most of the past three days, waiting to have his chance to once more visit the sole, involuntary reason he was here, he thought about the latest update he'd received.

The surgery had gone well; the bleeding was stopped and not only did the swelling not increase again, it was continuing to recede. Sam had worn a smile the length of his entire face at the revelation of this news. So elated was he that he failed to notice how incongruent his reaction was in conjunction with that expressed by the doctor relating information to him.

The bleeding was stopped, the swelling was going down, but apparently Jules was starting to run a fever.

At the relation of this one simple five letter word, Sam's face had fallen once more. He looked at Collin, a safe distance from him, and caught a mirrored response_. So, the man had been a bastard once_, he'd thought for a brief moment. _That didn't mean he was really an uncaring bastard by nature._

The doctor had gone on to elaborate how difficult it was for a person in a state such as Jules' to fight off a fever, how difficult it was to treat. He warned that this was the complication that sometimes claimed the lives of victims of traumatic brain injury, even after they had survived the initial impact and resulting abrasive treatments.

So now as he waited, his agony of the entire day returning after the brief reprieve he had been given in the form of the information of the success of the surgery, he thought about how Jules was now not only in the Limbo of uncertainty, but also experiencing the fiery burning of a hell from which she could not escape, so trapped was she by her own brain.

He turned his attention back to the man next to him, the sole member of Jules' family he had ever meant. He thought back to his previous thought about how one moment of poor judgment, a moment allowed to proliferate out of sheer stubbornness and fear of reconciliation, did not make a man inherently evil. He also thought about the importance of support systems and how amazing it was that Jules had made it through so much with only the help of a surrogate family, a family that knew so little of her past and what triggers such a past could engender. In the world one inherently evil bastard had created with a piece of construction equipment, that support system might not be enough for her. Not enough for her if she—

"Collin," Sam called, stunning the man into looking up at him. "They're saying it doesn't look good," he said in a soft tone, devoid of the dejection of one who would believe such an evaluation.

"Yeah," Collin simply answered.

"She survives," Sam said with confidence, as if he was stating that that was the only possible eventual outcome of this situation. "It's gonna be a long road home for her. I think she deserves the support of her family."

Collin nodded and smiled in understanding of what Sam was ordering him to do. "I'll try the phone first, but I think I might have to be on the road to Alberta soon."

Sam nodded as he watched the second eldest Callaghan sibling walk out to make a call. Secretly he knew he just wanted to be alone with Jules when he was allowed the time. Secretly, so secretly he was yet to admit it to himself, he knew that he needed this alone time to potentially say goodbye.

8:57 pm, City of Toronto Jail

After only a couple of days, Ed was sad to admit that this routine of organization and regimented lack of freedom was now becoming familiar to him.

It was the end of the day and the prisoners awaiting trial for their 'sins' were being lead from the common room where they were allowed to watch one television station or play a carefully supervised game of cards (after all, previous occupants of this fine establishment had found creative ways to turn simple playing cards into deadly weapons) back to their small barracks-like cells.

As Ed walked in the middle of a group of men supervised by only two tired looking guards, a man in front of the group collapsed as he clutched his stomach and began to make retching noises.

As the guards jumped to assist the fallen man, four men surrounding Ed pulled him into the showers they had just passed, away from the sight of the guards or any surveillance cameras. Ed sighed as realization rose to his mind. He was weary rather than afraid.

"So," a large, burly man with tattoos all around his neck and sporting a shaved hair cut similar to Ed's breathed through a dark smile. "How long did you think you'd get on before we all figured out who you were, Lane? Or," his smirk turned deadly, "should I say, OFFICER Lane?"

Ed began to hold up his hands, out of habit, to attempt to negotiate with the men around him, but before he could, the ring leader who had just spoken punctuated his statement with a strong right hook to Ed's jaw.

"Oufff," Ed exclaimed involuntarily.

"Keep it quiet, pig, or else we'll have to knock you out sooner, and well, that just wouldn't be as fun, would it?" the King Pin warned in his question as the three other men began to beat Ed violently with their own fists and feet.

He tried to defend himself from the onslaught, but the accumulated assault of four experienced ruffians was too much for him to handle and he soon found himself cowering in pain on the floor.

"Not so great without a team of pigs, is it, Lane?" the leader questioned while he simultaneously kicked the wind out of Ed's gut.

As the four men pulled back, allowing time to catch their breath from their exertions before they began their collective onslaught once more.

To their great surprise, Ed smiled and, almost inexplicably, began to laugh. His captors were caught off guard, but that did not deter them from continuing their harsh treatment of the police officer whose cover had apparently been blown.

Ed's smile and soft laugh began to deepen into guffaws as more and more aggression was applied to his unprotected body.

It was ironic, really. He was being gang beaten into the same bloody pulp that had landed him here. Yet, he did not yell, beg, or scream for mercy. He merely found the whole experience comical, because as opposed to the ballsack excuse for a human being whom he had beaten, he knew his reasons were virtuous. But, he also knew that no one would prosecute these men for their prison assault, which was worse than that which he'd given to Carter Huxley, because it was just business as usual in the clink.

And that was just So. Damn. Funny…to Ed.

Beatings and the motivations behind them meant nothing to people like him, and Jules in her unconscious state, who lived in a Limbo adverse to civilized society.

Ed's laughs at the absurdity of this state of being echoed throughout the hallways of the detention center, becoming the only signal to the guards that something was amiss.

12:59:59 pm, ?

_ …sam… _

**Author's Additional Note: **One of the things that threw me about this chappy was Greg needing a catharsis. Finally, it occurred to me that he and Spike needed to have some weird bromance by which they negotiated each other to a catharsis, because, let's face it, I love negotiation and can't let a story go without one, even if it's within the team. Also, yes, Ed got the "Hell-o Operator" kicked out of him. That had to happen; and he needed to find it hilarious as all heck. Oh Jam…oh dear. Also, when I came up with the Greg chiding Ted about the _Pygmalion_ line, I realized I DIDN'T even know where that originally came from. Thanks to **Tirsh** for her mad Google skillzs and the ability to find that out while I, a wee grasshopper, am still learning the ways of the Search Engine Samurai.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you thought of this chapter, story, or life in general. I'm not too picky.

Peace,

Eals


	13. Lay Me Down

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and following this story. Bet I surprised you with an update this quickly; that's just what happens when the chapter is pretty much only Jam.

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint.

Glasgow

Chapter 12: Lay Me Down

**Day 4**

8:11 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

Just a few minutes after Collin had left to make his (what amounted to becoming failed) phone calls and thus told Sam he was going to hit the road for Alberta to talk to the rest of the Callaghans in person, a nurse had come back to the waiting room and told Sam he could return to Jules' room and stay with her. He had been there, dozing with her hand held in his throughout the night when Greg came through the doorway and sighed softly at the sight of Jules, fully awakening Sam from his near sleep.

Greg sighed once more, this time in regret. "Sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to wake you up."

Sam looked up at Greg and shook his head. "No, no that's okay, Boss. I wasn't really asleep." He stole a quick glance at Jules. "I can't sleep. Not right now."

Greg smiled sadly at the younger man, a knowing look rising to his face that told Sam he knew that he had meant he shouldn't fall asleep right now, not that he had some physical insomnia that prevented him from getting some rest.

Greg turned to look at Jules again, hesitating, but indicating her now freely exposed mouth with his hands. "So, ah." He blew out a breath, but flashed Sam a smile. "So they took out the breathing tube. That's good, right?"

Sam nodded, but his face remained impassive. "Yeah. The swelling that was messing with her respiration went down and she can breathe on her own now." Where Greg had expected him to smile cheerfully at the revelation of this information, he ginned darkly in a way more reminiscent of a grimace. "She can breathe on her own now. It's just the fever…" he trailed off.

Greg nodded his head in understanding and walked behind Sam to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Just another setback, Sam. Nothing she can't get over like she has everything else."

Greg was surprised to see rather than a nod of agreement at these words of encouragement and faith, Sam simply remained impassive.

He moved onto a different track. "So, what happened to Collin?" he asked with an air of 'I hope you didn't beat him up and scare him off.'

Sam remained still and kept his eyes trained on Jules. "He went back to Medicine Hat to see if he could talk her Dad and the rest of her brothers into coming over here. Ya know, to help support her when she wakes up."

Greg was surprised to hear that the confidence behind Sam's words, the notion that the only possible outcome of the whole situation was that she would in fact wake up, had disappeared. "Do they all still live in Medicine Hat?" he queried, attempting to move Sam's attention elsewhere than from where his thoughts were evidently turning dark.

Sam simply shrugged to signify his ignorance towards the matter.

"We compiled enough information for an appeal on Ed's behalf. You know, to get him out on bail," Greg attempted to give Sam a distraction.

"What?" Sam looked-up, confusion lining his face. It struck Greg that Sam might not know what was going on with Ed, so all consumed was he with worry for Jules.

"Yeah, guess I might have missed telling you all the details before. Ed's bail was denied when he was arraigned for finding and assaulting the guy who did this," he replied kindly, speaking in a manner by which it could seem that Sam just hadn't gotten all of the details before, rather than being completely oblivious to the entire set of circumstances.

"Right," Sam offered a slight smile. "That's good."

Greg smiled back at Sam, but frowned when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. "Sorry. I really shouldn't have this on in here, but," his frown deepened when he read the text he'd received. "Oh no," he breathed out softly.

"What?" Sam asked with concern, seeming to come out of his tired, defeated, numb state.

Greg shook his head. "It's Ed." He sighed out in disgust and ginned darkly. "He was beaten up by a gang in the city jail last night," he replied while sending a return text.

Sam furrowed his brow. "Is he alright?"

Greg nodded as he read a new text he just got. "Yeah, slight concussion and some bruised ribs, but he should be fine." He looked up at Jules again. "Look, Sam. I'm sorry, but I have to go check-up on him myself, make sure they're taking care of him right. Will you be okay with Jules here by yourself?"

Sam smiled back at Greg and brought Jules' hand up to his lips to kiss. "Yeah, Boss. We'll be fine. I'll make sure someone calls you if anything changes."

"Thanks, Sam," Greg replied with an appreciative grin as he patted him on the back and moved up to stand beside Jules' head. He bent down and gave a fatherly kiss on her forehead before whispering something in her ear. Sam thought he caught the words 'strong' and 'fight,' but he couldn't be sure and was loath to barge in on Greg's private moment.

"Take care," he seemed to say to both members of the younger couple as he strode to leave the room.

"Yeah," Sam breathed out to empty air as he turned his attention back to Jules.

He could tell just how hot the fever was making her. Not only could he see sweat lining her forehead, the place Greg had just touched softly a moment ago, but it was also beginning to condense on top of her lip. He knew she had to be really hot for sweat to appear there. He thought of all the times he had marveled at her ability to stay both physically and metaphorically cool no matter what the circumstances or actual temperature. She just thought cool thoughts, is how she had always put it.

He smiled to himself at the thought of what he might have said if he'd ever caught her sweating so much under normal circumstances. "That's not very lady-like, Jules," he'd have teased and caught her resulting impish grin before she would have replied in a similar teasing manner.

"Whatever, Braddock," she'd joke with a smirk. "You're just jealous that I could probably grow a thinker beard than you, pretty boy."

Sam would fight to retain his chuckle as he closed the distance between them and reached his arms out to hold her. "You wouldn't like me if I wasn't pretty," he'd say as they both began to laugh companionably, laughter that would only be broken by his lips embracing hers in a strong and passionate kiss.

Sam smiled at the thought of how this who hypothetical scenario would have unfolded as he stared more deeply at that lip now drenched in a sickly sweat. He remember kissing that lip so freely, seeing it curl up into a resulting grin from his gesture, having the right and her permission to kiss it for the rest of their lives. Having her for the rest of their lives…

If only she could just cool down. He knew that she was getting better; she would come back to him if only she could just cool down and make it through this unnatural fever.

He thought to a time when they had both been so cool, back to a memory from when they were secretly dating the first time; back before she was shot and watched Lew die, when she was still light, bubbly, and unafraid of taking certain risks just for the fun of it rather than only to save a life.

She'd invited him to go for a boat ride one afternoon with a vessel one of her friends had offered her the use of while she was on vacation. She reasoned that it would not only be a fun and different experience, but that it would also give them a chance to go on an actual date without the fear of being caught together in public.

He'd agreed, the thought of seeing her out in the light of day out of uniform enticing his imagination, and they found themselves venturing out into Lake Ontario under the brilliantly bright sun. They dropped anchor, and Jules stood looking out over the horizon on the side of the boat.

Her hair glistened in the soft rays of the afternoon sun as the wind blew it gently to the left. He couldn't help himself. He talk up to her and leaned forward to capture her lips with his own and she obliged by leaning into the kiss as well, her hands resting on his strong, bare chest. The moment was so tender, so sweet, which was why Sam was completely and utterly surprised when Jules broke the kiss almost violently by pushing him over the side of the boat.

"Jules, What The—"Sam shouted, flustered, his fear of open water rising anew within him. There were reasons why he had joined the Army and not the Navy, reasons why he was secretly glad he was sent to the middle of the desert and not off the coast of some country for an amphibious landing.

As Sam flaunted forward to grasp the side of the boat, Jules lightly chuckled down at him and jumped into the cold water herself. Sam wasn't sure what she had in mind, but if she thought there was anything remotely romantic about this entire situation, she was sorely mistaken.

"Relax, Sam," Jules encouraged with a smile as she grabbed his hands and began to guide him away from the boat.

"Jules, okay, what the Hell is this all about?" Sam nearly squeaked out in fear that he wasn't even TRYING to hide. "And it's FREAKING cold!" he added with annoyance.

Jules simply smirked softly, allowing her secrete lover to squirm in a manner he knew she found oh so adorable before she condoned to give him an answer. "First off, you're Canadian, you can handle it, and second, I thought it was time to test that swimming practice you've been having and put it to practical use."

Practical? She found THIS PRACTICAL? "Uh," Sam began as he clung tightly to her hands as she continued to swim farther and farther away from the safe haven of their tiny vessel. "Yeah. Jules, swimming in a pool is one thing, but open water freaks me the Hell out." He pleaded with her to end this torturous experience with his eyes.

Jules frowned at him and raised an eyebrow. "But you swam in open water in the harbor on that call a few months ago!"

Sam had real fear in his eyes when he answered her with the logic he was surprised she didn't see. "Yeah! That was THE HARBOR; I knew it couldn't be that deep. I mean," he pleaded with his eyes once more, "for all I know out here, the Edmond Fitzgerald could be beneath me!"

Jules scoffed and gave him a 'don't be a dumb-ass' face. "Sam, the Edmond Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. This is Lake Ontario. Unless mutant lake mermaids invented some sort'a underwater teleportation device, I think it's safe to say the Edmond Fitzgerald IS NOT beneath you."

Her logic was sound, but it did not negate his fear. He fought with all his might not to whimper before the tiny bad-ass he was falling in love with before him. He didn't think he could be any more nervous, at least not until Jules let go of his hands and swam about 10 feet away from him.

"Jules!" Sam shouted as he began to flail around in an attempt to stay afloat.

"Just swim to me, Sam. Put all that training you've been doing to good use," Jules encouraged in a calm tone.

Sam calmed himself, concentrated, worked to look beyond his fear and remember all of the extra swimming training Jules had convinced him to take after he'd explained his fear of open water swimming to her in the back of her Jeep the night after the harbor swim she'd mentioned earlier. With the memory of the confidence that pool training had begun to instill in him, he began his awkward modified doggie paddle style of strokes to swim towards her.

Jules smiled as if to say, 'see, I told you you could do it' as she reached out and guided him towards her, easing his final strokes. Sam smiled back at her with pride, but soon frowned to display his exasperation with the entire sequence of events that had just transpired. "Why the Hell'd you have to have to do that, Jules?" he nearly shouted at her.

Jules smiled back at him calmly and raised her hand from where it had been, bracing his shoulder in support. "Sam, sometimes when you truly love someone or something, the best thing to do is let them go," she said, staring at him as if she was imparting some great philosophical truth on him.

A few months later when she had sat on the opposite side of a table and told him directly that she loved him while simultaneously breaking-up with him, he'd thought her deep words had foreshadowed that moment in time. Now he thought that maybe they were meant to guide him here and now, years later in this dire time of need.

Sometimes when you truly love someone, the best thing to do is let them go…

But the wisdom and thought of this notion truly frightened Sam more than open water swimming in the middle of Lake Ontario, Edmond Fitzgerald or no, could ever have done. Because, accepting this notion meant also accepting beliefs that he wasn't sure if even held.

He'd never wanted to really think about what happened after death. His life seemed to be so frequently touched by it that rather than think about it he'd always pushed it out of his mind and attempted to look towards the living, even as the guilt of actually or simply feeling that he'd caused certain of those deaths clouded his mind. He'd never wanted to really think about it, especially in the context of the woman he'd come to love more than he ever dreamed possible, most especially because their job was so dangerous that they flirted with the possibility of dying on nearly a daily basis.

He'd never wanted to think or talk about it, but Jules had. She brought the conversation up a on the day she'd arrived home from the hospital after being treated for the shrapnel wound and exposure to anthrax that had nearly, too nearly for any semblance of comfort for Sam, killed her a few days before. Sam had been getting her settled in bed and was running around the house trying to get her anything that might ease the dull pain she'd been having since the surgery that saved her life. If he was being honest with himself, he'd admit that he was really just flying around with the pent-up energy of being scared out of his mind by the potential that his biggest fear could have been realized.

"Sam," she spoke loudly, bringing his attention directly on her, rather than some amorphous need she might have. She gently grabbed his hand and guided him to sit next to her on the bed. "Just, relax, okay. I'm fine now."

Sam sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. "I know, I know. I just want to make sure you're alright and everything, because it's just," he shook his head, unable to finish.

"Just what?" she prompted him, a hint of knowing in her voice.

He kissed her forehead and began to stroke her hair. "I was just so scared, that's all." He realized this was the first time he'd fully expressed his true emotions of that near deadly day in words.

"I know, Sam, I know," she replied simply.

They both laid in companionable silence. Sam felt himself on the edge of sleep with his one true love now safely and comfortably resting by his side, when Jules stirred him to full wakefulness.

"Sam, what would you have done if I'd died?" she inquired softly, bringing up that topic he had never in his life wanted to broach.

He paused before answering her, contemplative and frightened, before he whispered out a flustered response. "I don't know. What would you do if I ever die on a call?"

Jules seemed to be contemplative by her own right, but she didn't take too long to respond to him as if she'd already given this possibility some thought. "I'd grieve, be devastated, feel horrible for a long time. But not forever." She paused to look up at him and gauge his confused reaction.

"I've seen too much," she began to answer the question in his eyes, "learned too much. I guess I've just been taught by life experience that I believe what I was raised on is mostly true."

She paused to think her words out and explain them coherently. "I've seen too much in this job to believe that that's all there is. That this is the sum total of our lives, or I guess, existence. I don't think I can see people make the mistakes they make, see the bravery that sometimes seems to come to nothing, see the evil that we sometimes see and believe that this is all there is." She looked away from him for a moment and said, "I can't think of Lew and his bravery and sacrifice and believe that this is all there is."

She took a moment before turning her face back up to Sam's and saying with conviction, "I believe in Heaven and Hell. And I believe that there wouldn't be a Heaven if you weren't allowed to be in it."

She stared deeply into his eyes and smiled, waiting for his resulting smile before continuing. "So, that's my thing. I'd be sad, but happy in a way that you would be in a better place than one that would just let you die." She reached up with her healing left arm and stroked his face. "I'd wait for my time, and I'd meet you again."

Sam held her hand to his face, but cast his eyes downward. "I don't know if I believe that. I really don't know what I believe." He returned his attention to his face. "I just really don't like thinking about this kind of stuff."

Jules smirked and leaned up to kiss the worry lines out of his brows. "Let's just put it this way. I don't want you to just figure your life is over if I'm not in it. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me to just wallow around in a depressive funk for the rest of my life if you were gone either."

He chuckled softly and shifted to place his hand behind her back to lay her back down on her pillow. "No, I guess I wouldn't." He leaned down to kiss her softly on the lips. "I'm just glad I really don't have to think about stuff like this right now." He laid a gentle hand on her temple. "Now get some rest." He felt her grab his arm in protest of him getting up. "Don't worry," he smiled, "I'm not going anywhere."

Sam blinked and brought himself back to the present where he had also sworn time and time again not to go anywhere. But now, he wondered if his pleading desires for her to fight and stay with him were nothing more than selfish actions on his part. If it really was a time to let someone you truly loved go, to end their pain and suffering. If the reason he couldn't let her go was because he simply didn't have the beliefs she had; if the only beliefs he really had were in her.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it as he reasoned with himself. If the only thing he had come to let himself believe in was her, than perhaps he should take her beliefs and share them, simply because he placed his faith in her.

He placed her hand gently in his bandaged one and used his free right hand to stroke her face. "Jules," he began, not even realizing he had come to a conscious decision. "I don't really know if you can hear me, but maybe you can." He smiled convincingly at her as if he was trying to encourage her to believe that she really could hear him.

"You know I love and will always love you." His smile somehow seemed to hold joy, love, and sadness all at once as he fought to keep tears from brimming in his eyes. "And I want you to stay with me, just like I promise I'll stay with you." He breathed out a shuddering breath before continuing. "But if you're in pain and only hanging on for me, or because you feel like you owe anyone or anything something, I don't want you to have to suffer. So," he sighed as he tried to bring a pure smile to his face, but somehow a tear still managed to fall from his right eye. "If you need to go, you can. I'll wait to meet you again like you said before."

As he finished his last words, he brought his hands together to hold her one hand and brought it to his bowed forehead as the floodgates of rain began to descend from his eyes, he, having said what he had to, having no further strength to hold them off.

And as he let her hand fall back into his broken one and brought his head back up to stare at her face as he began to lightly stroke it again, he thought of the irony of how on the day he had planned to ask her to stay with him forever, he was giving her permission to leave him behind.

**Additional Author's Note: **My inspiration for the swimming scene came from a picture that **SYuuri** made in photo-shop of Sam and Jules in a towel together. We were all like, "WHERE IS THAT FROM?" Of course, she made it and just got us all excited. But from it inspiration was created so, Thanks SYuuri! Also, I hope the whole death discussion didn't come off as preachy in any way. Wasn't going for that at all and personally HATE IT when stuff gets preachy. I just figured that the characters would have those kinds of views after living the lives they do and seeing the things they've seen, especially Jules with Lew.

**Please leave a review** to let me know what YOU thought. I can editorialize all the live long day on my own weird stuff, but it's always better when I hear your opinions : )

Later gators,

Eals


	14. I Just Want to go Back to

**Author's Note:** Hey, guys! Hope all is well with everyone out there! Thanks to all who have been reading, reviewing, and following this story. I'm sorry to say I kind-of got a little excited by how many of you said you cried from the last chapter; it's the most gratifying thing in the world for a writer to know that they've touched people in such a deep way. Anyho, here's the next chappy. As I told **YoungAtHeart21**, this chapter is relatively short, but I hope poignant. You may want to read into it…

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint or WebMD.

Glasgow

Chapter 13: I Just Want to go Back to

**Day 5**

3:07 am, ?

_…After coming back from the black again, the place where I was fading out to, I'm starting to notice something new. It's so uncomfortable, but feels so real. I feel so hot, like I'm running the obstacle course in full gear, over and over again, during a heat wave; like my core is burning from the inside out. I think I've done that before, but for some reason, I can't be sure. All I know is I'm feverishly hot as all Hell…_

…_Sam told me how cold it was, but I brushed him off, keeping a figurative cool exterior, while in reality I was starting to shiver with near hypothermia myself by the time the whole exercise was done…_

_ He was so freaked out by the whole thing, but I did it all to keep him safe. In an elite SWAT team that went anywhere and everywhere, I just wanted to make sure he'd be safe if we ever had to respond to another amphibious call._

_We were so cold that day, but so content. What I wouldn't give, wherever I am, to feel that cool, that strangely contentedly safe in Sam's arms again… _

_Arms that I've felt at times like I was slipping away from. Arms that I can sometimes imagine the feel of extending familiar and sure hands to hold me, comfort me, from what, I have no clue. Arms connected to a body that almost seems like it's saying good-bye. Arms that I just want to get back to, to give the comfort he so freely gives, to take the comfort that I crave, to take the comfort that I can't seem to find wherever it is I am now…_

_ …There's a, a, not a pounding, but some sort of dull throbbing in my head. It's a pain I remember too well, but from different places; my side and chest after being shot; my arm after cutting an artery._

_ I guess it's like some post-surgery pain then._

_ But I can't figure why it would be coming from my head._

_ …I think Seamus accidently pushed me out of a tree once. I went into a black that was different from the one I feel like I'm fading in and out of now, but similar in certain aspects. Aspects like it lasting for an indeterminate space of time. Aspects like it steeling what might amount to memories._

_I only vaguely remember getting up and walking a few steps before collapsing into Collin's arms, but that's what he confirmed happened. I don't remember Mick carrying me back to the house, or Pat trying to comfort Seamus as he cried in shame for what he had done, making his name a sick pun as a result of accidental abuse, but that's what they told me happened. I only remember waking up, for lack of a better word, to Collin bandaging the resulting bleeding cut on my head, the only visible evidence of the whole event, while my Dad paced nervously in front of us. Mick punched my shoulder and told me I was a true Callaghan. Dad gritted his teeth, but nodded. I never knew what either of them meant._

_ My head throbbed for a week after that, the result of brain swelling I learned on WebMD years later. But that pain was different. It was almost all encompassing and more of a dull sensation. This pain is more targeted and stronger, but still not pounding. I wonder if (if I could) shake my head I would almost feel like my brain was swishing around in my head like it felt like that week after Seamus's Folly…_

_ …The last thing I remember is nothing. The last thing I remember is things that might be memories, but maybe they're just hypothetical situations in my head._

_ Hypothetical situations, like Sam and me going on a Honeymoon together. I can imagine smiling at the thought. I can imagine him surprising me with some weird, exotic location where we'd have to rough it out ourselves to survive. I can imagine rather than being highly disappointed, like most girls would be, being excited for the challenge he proposed, a challenge much less daunting than the one of marriage, but one that would prepare us for the 'mundane nature' of it just the same. One where nothing was easy, but if you truly believed and worked your hardest, you could always survive it as a team. More than survive, thrive. The sum total of two becoming more than its separate parts._

_But there's no way for me to be sure, no way to know what's actually real…_

_ Sarge is always telling me (at least I think he is) that my biggest character flaw is my fear of failure, how it boxes me in and sometimes prevents me from taking the chances I need to take to get the job done. Right here and now, wherever I am, I'm starting to think my biggest fear and character flaw is the fear of the unknown. _

_Maybe it's the fear of not knowing where I really am, what's really real, why I feel so feverish, why there's a distinctly familiar dull pain radiating from the side of my head. If I could just give that up, accept what's going on, maybe I could get out of here; maybe I could cool off; maybe the unknown pain will go away. _

_ I guess I'm just mostly afraid of not knowing where Sam is, if he's safe, not cold and not boiling hot, but warm and comforted. The fear of not knowing if the rest of my team is safe. The fear of not knowing why I'm so afraid that they might not be. The fear that I might be letting them down for some unknown reason._

_ So I guess I'm giving up. Not the desire to get back to where I want to be, where I think I'm needed, where Sam and Sarge and the team that has become my family is, but the fear. The fear of not understanding where or what or how or any of the minute details that might explain this Limbo I seem to be stuck in. I refuse to believe this is the end of anything, of everything. _

_So, I will give up the fear of not knowing if this truly is the sum total of my existence. I will accept that this is simply just some transitory state. I will accept what will come from it…_

**Additional Author's Note: **So, this chapter is just one big clue as to what's going on. I'll give you a further clue and suggest you compare it to Jules' other coma thoughts parts.

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you think of this chapter, if you have any guesses as to what's going to happen next, or just to make me feel better. The Olympics ended and I'm going through withdraw from the lack of pleasure neurotransmitters watching them always gives me, so make up for it by showing you care and giving some feedback, hahaha ; )

Peace,

Eals


	15. I Think I'm Now Awake

**Author's Note: **Well, guys, here we are at the end of this story. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it to the very end by reading, reviewing, and following it. I've been doing something with the chapter titles (excluding the prologue) that I'm surprised no one's figured or pointed out yet. One of those writer things you just do for yourself. In this chapter, there's only a time given for the initial scene, because everything else follows in sequence. So, hope you all find this a satisfactory end to this story, which I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I have telling it (even if it drained me of my ability to read angst. STILL trying to finish that Karen White book three months later…).

I don't own or have rights to Flashpoint.

Glasgow

Chapter 14: I Think I'm Now Awake

**Day 5**

7:00 am, St. Patrick's Hospital

After allowing himself to freely give permission to himself to say goodbye to Jules, Sam had felt himself enter into a sort of uneasy state of peace. Although he still refused to give up total hope that she would survive and awaken to return to him as whole as she had been when she had gone wherever she was now, he had allowed himself to flirt with the idea that she was right about what death really was. He had given himself permission to begin to believe and be comforted by a faith that he'd never allowed himself to be comforted by before.

After going to the city jail and making sure Ed was being taken care of properly, Greg had returned with Spike in the afternoon to see how not only Jules, but Sam was doing. Spike had made a large sandwich from one of his mom's old recipes and brought it with pleading eyes (from both himself and Greg) for Sam to eat. Having only eaten bits and pieces of things over the better part of the week, being too distraught to consume much of anything, Sam had graciously taken the offering and eaten at least half, his newfound semblance of solace heightening his appetite at least marginally.

Greg and Spike had tried to convince him to take a shower or at least change his clothes, but only got him to take his hand out of Jules' for a second while he changed his shirt. Figuring they would simply accept the battle wins that they could, Greg and Spike remained grateful that he'd at least eaten something and changed his shirt and decided not to force the subject any further. Being asked by the night nurse to take their leave in the early evening, Greg and Spike had said their goodbyes to the couple and left Sam alone with the fallen sniper for what they sadly knew might be a long night.

So exhausted, but strangely comforted, Sam had found himself drifting to sleep over and over again throughout the night. Rather than fight it any longer, he allowed himself to completely doze off somewhere before midnight. It was a light and shallow, dreamless sleep, but at least he was getting some much needed rest.

It was in this light slumber that he now existed in the early hours of the morning, the start of the fifth day Jules had been unnaturally unconscious. Every so often he'd awaken to only a half-asleep state, stare with sleepy eyes at his still immobile lover, then drift off once more as if he was simply waiting for his alarm clock to go off and periodically checking the clock before succumbing back into rest.

With his head bowed over the side of the bed, lying next to the joined hands that Sam had only reluctantly disconnected for mere moments at a time in the past day, Sam continued to doze until he felt something twitching. Lightly awakening, he stared at Jules' face again, the face of a metaphorical alarm clock, before fully coming to his senses and staring down at the hand that held hers. The moment his eyes locked with the conjoined extremities, he felt and completely understood what was actually happening: her hand was moving.

Surprised and still not allowing himself to accept what his heart had wished for for the past five days, Sam did a double take at her moving fingers before looking up to her face.

"Jules?" he asked in a whisper.

Her eyes began to flutter slightly as if they were trying to open.

A smile began to light Sam's face as he brought her hand in both of his up to his lips to kiss and stood to stand next to her head. "Jules!" he said again, this time more lively and not as a whisper.

As he began to rather than just hold, but clutch the hand he'd felt and seen move with his very own trained and innately alert senses, he saw her lids open half-way. She seemed to be staring at him, but didn't make a sound other than a slight moan; Sam guessed a moan in reaction to a feeling of pain.

"Hey, sweetheart," Sam breathed out lightly as he bent over her and reached behind her head to strike the call button for a doctor or nurse. Bringing his hand back, he moved to feel her forehead and smiled more deeply as he felt cool skin: the fever had broken.

"Hey, Jules," he began again, grinning like an idiot when he saw her eyes blink but follow him in response to his voice. "You've been asleep for a while," he informed as he brought her hand back to his lips to kiss once more. "I was about to try waking you with gentle butterfly kisses augmented by the clanging of pots and pans," he grinned out as he kissed her right hand again and thought he caught a bit of an upturn in her lips at his words.

"I missed you so much," he told her as he began to use his right hand to stroke her face.

"I love you," he told her as if it was both a declaration and promise and smiled the largest smile he'd ever had in his life, because he felt her lightly squeeze his hand in return.

XXXXX

It was a little before 8am as Greg found himself driving towards the SRU Headquarters with that familiar sense of melancholy being a leader sometimes engendered. He figured he'd put this off long enough; Team One had been completely off duty for almost a full business week, and that was just simply too long. Even the fact that the team was scheduled for a three day break starting the day before did not negate the fact that he had not yet taken the necessary steps to get the team of officers back to their jobs of keeping the peace.

He'd put this responsibility off for so long for multiple reasons. One obvious one was that he wasn't exactly sure how many of his officers he would need to replace. He wasn't sure how many of his officers would need temporary replacements…and how many would need permanent replacements.

The thought of having to permanently replace two members of his team chilled him to the bone. He knew that both Ed and Jules' fates were now hanging in the balance of a jury trial and life and death, respectively. He never wanted to have to replace anyone for either reason, but he had to accept that they were both the only two definite officers he'd need to find stand-ins for, he prayed only temporarily.

He still wasn't sure about Raf. He knew the man had started paperwork for a sabbatical from the SRU, but Greg still wasn't sure if he would actually go through with it. He was still holding onto hope that the rookie would decide after a few days out of action that he still had a place on the elite SWAT team.

The biggest question mark for Greg was Sam. Even though the younger man had seemed marginally more responsive when he'd seen him the afternoon before, he wasn't sure if Sam would ever tear himself away from Jules' bedside. He wasn't sure if Sam could get on with his life if she—

The fact that he and Spike were the only two remaining members of Team One that he would definitely not have to start paperwork on to find replacements for had Greg in a bit of a funk. He knew it was just the thought of the uncertainty tied to the reasons behind the need for this process and paperwork that had him down and that he needed to remember to remain positive about all the various outcomes one man's dreadful action had caused almost a week before. He needed to stay positive for Ed and Jules and Raf and Sam and Spike's sake. But most of all, he needed to remember to stay positive for his own sanity as well.

While still on the highway, Greg heard his cell phone go off. He turned off the radio and pushed the hands-free device to talk. "Parker," he said without looking at the display of who was calling him.

"Hey, Sarge, it's Sam," the voice on the other side of the line responded. Greg's mind immediately went to a very dark place of terror before it registered that the younger man's voice sounded rather up-beat.

"Sam?" he asked warily.

"Yeah. Boss, Jules woke-up," Sam nearly gushed over the phone line, a laugh of glee uncharacteristically punctuating his words.

"Whaaahh?" Greg incoherently responded, so stunned he lifted his foot off the gas a little and began to slow down to well below the speed limit.

"They have her in for an MRI right now. I wanted to go with her, but," Sam chuckled lightly, his joyfulness exuding through every fiber of his being even over the phone, "they wouldn't let me within a 10 foot radius of the MRI room." Greg could almost hear him shrugging on the other end of the phone as he allowed a smile to reach his own lips. "Pins in my knee from an old hockey injury when I was a kid."

"Yeah, they can be pretty strict about maiming a person with the metal inside their own bodies at the hospital," Greg joked as he absorbed a fraction of Sam's joy through his own shock.

But before Greg could allow himself to become as elated as Sam, a thought occurred to him. He remembered Doctor What's-His-Name's initial warnings about resulting disabilities such traumatic brain damage could cause. "Sam, what, how," he began before taking a breath to steady his nerves. "Is she alright?" he settled on a simple and ambiguous question.

Sam didn't even deflate a fraction in his answer. "It's early and she's pretty out of it, but," Sam paused to snort happily, reveling in his own moment. "I told her I love her and she squeezed my hand, Sarge."

At this revelation, Greg allowed a genuine smile to engulf his face. He thought back to catching the slight hand squeeze between Sam and Jules in the hospital on the day of Izzy's birth. It had been his first tip-off about the possible return of their budding romance, and he had frowned upon it on that day. But since then he had come to appreciate it as an important part in their secrete language that showed how true their love was. He'd also come to know it as a simple way Jules communicated with all the people she loved, remembering the last Team picnic when he'd come the closest he'd ever come to telling Jules how much he loved and relied on her, her resulting simple squeeze of his arm, returning his own gesture.

Greg chuckled softly as glee began to fill his own heart. "That's great, Sam," he said knowingly.

As the two men disconnected and Greg saw the SRU building in the distance, he paused before making a sharp U-turn into the opposite lane going away from the SRU and towards St. Patrick's, towards hope that he hadn't felt fully for the past week.

XXXXX

As Collin drove through the early morning light, he was getting closer and closer to his final destination of Medicine Hat, Alberta. He'd been on the road for over a day and a half now on account of the fact that he'd had to drive all the way home to Montreal to pick-up something that he thought might help him in his quest to convince the rest of the family to end this cold war and re-establish their relationship with the youngest Callaghan sibling.

He yawned as he gipped the steering wheel tightly and tried to ignore the angry noise of his stomach growling, demanding sustenance. He'd been determined to only stop for gas and short power naps, only eating small snacks of junk-food he could acquire while waiting for his tank to fill-up.

His attention was divided from its full focus on the road as he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He picked it up and gave a curt salutation. As the person on the other end of the phone answered him, Collin whispered, "Thank you," and hung-up the phone.

A smile began to etch itself across Collin's face as his hands loosened on the steering wheel.

XXXXX

Detective Kevin Wordsworth sat in a diversionary 'electric company van' waiting to give the go to start the early morning raid his team had been planning on a drug operation in down-town Toronto. He was about to give the go to his anxious team, when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

He held up his finger as he checked the caller ID to see who was communicating with him at such an early hour in the morning. At the looks and words of disgust and annoyance from his waiting team, he silenced them by simply saying, "It's Team One."

The men of Guns and Gangs immediately backed off at this simple intelligence that told them so much considering the raid leader's well known background.

Wordy smiled and began to nod before he signed off and hung-up the phone.

Looking at the members of the team he now belonged to, he continued to smile. "Alright, guys. Let's keep the peace," he said, signaling the start of what he knew in his heart would be a successful raid, the information he'd just been given heightening his confidence and will to perform the job of a police officer.

XXXXX

Raf was in his living room after coming in from a quick morning run, folding some laundry as he waited for his coffee to brew, when he heard his phone ring. He went into the kitchen to answer his cordless phone.

As he listened to the person on the other side of the line, he walked back into the living room.

After hearing the full extent of the other person's conversation, he began to smile and nod. "That's awesome, man. Really awesome," he replied cheerily.

After hanging up the phone, he continued to smile, but sighed softly. He shook his head in joyful disbelief as he continued to fold the various pieces of his SRU uniforms and place them one by one neatly into a cardboard storage box.

XXXXX

Ed sat with his head bowed to the early morning light, nursing his recent wounds, in solitary confinement, a place he'd been relegated to for his own safety.

He was thinking about how much he missed his family, how unjust the world could really be. He smirked softly to himself as he flashed back to various knuckles connecting with different parts of his body only on account of the fact that he wore a badge. He thought about Jules laying in a coma only on account of the fact that she too wore a badge. He grunted at the thought of the sacrifice a simple article of clothing could cause those who swore to protect and serve.

As he brought his hand up to feel his jaw, to check and see if the swelling had gone down any after over a day, he heard a guard enter the outer area of his jail cell.

"Officer Lane?"

Ed didn't look up, but responded, "Yeah?"

The guard approached his cell more closely. "We just got a call from your lawyer. Apparently his appeal on your behalf was successful and you're gonna have a new bail hearing."

Ed nodded his head, but still did not look up.

The Guard began to retreat in the direction by which he had come, but looked over his shoulder to give Ed one last piece of information before he left. "Oh, yeah. And your friend Callaghan woke-up," he said before turning with a hidden grin and leaving Ed alone once more.

At these words, Ed lifted his head as he heard the door the guard had just left through clang shut. Staring and seeing something that wasn't actually in front of him, a small smile began to creep across his face.

**THE END**

**Author's Additional Note: **Hopefully the previous chapter gave you some hints about how this story would end (ie, how it was disjointed, but not AS disjointed as the other coma thoughts, the punctuation (and fact that "I" was capitalized), the fact that she was remembering real things rather than things alike to her memories, her being aware of pain and heat, etc.). Yes, I admit that I did think about killing her in the early stages of developing this story. Me: "What if I actually killed one of my favorite characters EVER? That'd be a plot twist (!)." There are several reasons why I didn't, the most important one I'm sworn to secrecy not to tell. I might do a sequel to this, but am not sure if I want to. I'd have to write a lot of Ed stuff. Not necessarily bad, just more of a challenge. The name of the article this story was inspired by is: "The Reanimation of Alison." _Runner's World_, June 2012. Haha, check out the half-assed APA style citation….

**Please leave a review** and let me know what you thought of this chapter and story as a whole.

Thanks for reading and take care,

Eals


End file.
